Star Trek: Babylon
by Andrew Joshua Talon
Summary: Not a crossover. A Federation task force is sent to find one of their own in former Borg territory. Instead, they find a gateway of the gods.
1. Chapter 1

**_Star Trek: Babylon_**

_Andrew J. Talon_

_This is just my first foray into Star Trek fanfiction, which might continue on into some Pocketbook Star Trek novels (eventually). I met Peter David at a sci fi convention, and said he'd be glad to look into my writing. He might not remember me, but hey: Might as well give it a shot, right?_

_Enjoy!

* * *

_

Physicists all around the universe had once thought light to be the fastest thing in existence. It formed an impenetrable barrier that stopped starships, communications, and all other objects. It was considered mythical, a divine force that taunted and humbled all who attempted to master it. These same physicists would probably be surprised to learn that here and now, in the twenty-fourth century, that light was considered something of a joke.

A race was considered advanced when it exceeded this simplest of electromagnetic phenomena, even more so when it abandoned light for more exotic energy waves, particles, and combinations of both. Tachyons, chronitons, quarks, leptons-All received the most attention from a civilization in interstellar matters. Light became obsolete and inconsequential. No one wanted to study light anymore.

And yet, light continued on, not stopping, not changing, despite the ever accelerating cosmos around it. If light were an entity, it might find amusement in the boasts of scientists, engineers, and mathematicians who cast it off as a subject for study. Their greatest starships could exceed light's constant speed, could outrun it without even trying, but when those starships ran out of fuel or power, it was light that continued to plod on. The subtle tortoise to sentient being's loud, noisy hares.

Light was never in a hurry. It didn't have to be.

Spacefaring beings, however, were a different matter.

* * *

"Damage report!"

The smoke-choked bridge was a cacophony of blurred lights, fuzzy figures, and blinding sparks. The captain in the middle of the chaos gripped the armrests of his chair like he was trying to strangle the innocent piece of furniture, as the deck rolled beneath him from another blast.

"Shields at thirty percent! Primary reactor coolant lines are down! Switching to backups!" Shouted his engineer, cursing colorfully from somewhere in the haze. The captain swore loudly as the ship shuddered and slammed back into normal space, crewmembers around him losing their balance.

"Warp engines are down! The core is just too unstable!"

"Fifteen dead on deck nine, sir!"

"Aft shields are down!"

The varied reports bombarded the captain, even as the vessel shook from another blast courtesy of her assailant. The captain got up and stumbled over to the engineering station, gripping the back of his officer's chair.

"Do we still have impulse power?"

"Yes, barely…"

"Ensign! Best speed! Random heading!" He turned to the distressed-looking tactical officer. "Throw our last torpedoes at them!"

"Aye!" His view switched back to the main screen ahead, suffering from lines of static as it fought to maintain a picture. Their pursuer, a massive sphere-shaped vessel, took the hits, but continued closing in.

"Damn. Anywhere nearby to hide?"

"I'm seeing… Something over to port… Looks like… An anomaly, of some kind," the operations officer reported loudly. She screamed as her console exploded, sending her flying to the middle of the bridge. The captain dove for cover just as another console exploded, pelting him with white-hot pieces of metal and polymers. He looked up, swore loudly, before typing something on the ruptured piloting console at the head of the bridge. He ignored the further screams of the wounded, ignoring the ceaseless pounding of the enemy ship's weapons-His entire being focused on the growing, blue sphere before them, offering them salvation from the deadly sphere behind them. Another hit, and the ship lost attitude control, tumbling like a leaf in the wind as it disappeared into the blue sphere. The pursuing vessel attempted to follow, but froze at the edge of the strange object. It stayed stuck, as though caught in a sticky web.

It began to quiver and shake, as though loosening itself from its invisible captor. Only instead of escaping, the ship was squashed, imploding into a flaming, wretched ball of debris. Only then could it enter the anomaly, but obviously it had not intended to go in as irony's bitch.

A last communiqué from the sphere-shaped vessel had been sent to its brethren: _Continuing pursuit of starship _Zhukov: _Request inquiry into Sector 5336A anomalies._

The response had come almost immediately, but no one was there to hear it.

* * *

Admiral Kathryn Janeway started at the mild bump to her seat, and looked about quickly. She relaxed silently at the sight of a wide, well-lit shuttle bay outside the shuttle view screens, before turning her attention to her rather sheepish-looking pilot next to her.

"Sorry, Admiral. First time out of the sims," explained the young Bolian female, as she blushed dark blue. Janeway nodded in an almost regal manner, and smiled gently at the pilot.

"It's not a problem, Ensign. Just keep practicing. Not all transfers from Earth to the shipyards are as uneventful," Janeway advised, standing up and walking to the shuttle's rear hatch. Slowly, it descended, centimeter by centimeter, until finally it settled on the deck without a sound. Janeway blinked awkwardly at the prim, blonde lieutenant standing at attention before her, who had averted her gaze.

"Admiral Janeway… Welcome aboard _Sojourner._ The captain is expecting you," the officer stated quietly. Janeway blinked at her once more, before slowly nodding.

"Miss Gilmore." The former crew member of the infamous USS i _Equinox /i _nodded politely, and held out an arm to her left, motioning the admiral forward. Janeway turned and walked, Gilmore trailing behind. The shuttle bay operator stood at attention, to which Janeway nodded, before entering the turbolift, Gilmore right behind her. As it closed, Gilmore ordered the elevator to the bridge, and with a high-pitched hum it began to move. Neither spoke for a few moments.

"I wanted to thank you, Admiral… For speaking on my behalf at the court martial," broke Gilmore softly. The Admiral, not looking at her, simply nodded.

"Your actions warranted that I do so. Your service on _Voyager_ did so as well." Janeway frowned. "I wasn't told you had been assigned to this ship."

"Captain Lee was the only captain who would let me join his crew, ma'am," Gilmore replied in a willowy tone. Janeway's frown deepened.

"I see." The lift mercifully reached the bridge, opening with a soft beep.

"Admiral on deck," squeaked a high-pitched voice in Federation standard. The admiral, having taken only a step onto the bridge, did a double take at the source of the order.

A dolphin, in a Starfleet uniform hovered in the air before her. Its eyes were narrowed as it looked over the straight-backed crew members on the bridge. The dolphin then turned and straightened its tail and flippers, inclining its head slightly to the openly gaping Janeway.

"Lieutenant Commander Twi'lei'hei, at your service, Admiral," the dolphin spoke in that same, high-pitched squeak. Janeway's gape turned into a broad grin.

"It's been a while, Commander. I haven't seen you since we were on the _Billings._" The admiral approached the dolphin, waving her arms slightly in what was roughly a human version of a dolphin handshake. Twi'lei'hei's perpetual dolphin grin remained in place.

"Weren't you a navigator?" Janeway asked.

"I switched to command. It's surprisingly easy to order people around and keep them in line." Twi'lei'hei snapped his jaws, inclining his head a bit more deeply. Janeway laughed, returning the gesture.

"Now, now, Commander Twee, let's not keep our guest waiting," came a gentle, yet roughened voice from behind Janeway. She turned, and had a flashback to _Voyager_ upon meeting eyes very much like ones she'd encountered before on a bridge nearly identical to this one.

He was medium height, not much taller than she was, actually. His relatively pale skin and limber gait gave away a past spent in space. His brown hair was rather messy, something the admiral unconsciously tensed at. He would have never run around on her ship with a bird's nest like that on his head.

The most prominent of his features were easily his eyes. They were large, violet pools that coolly surveyed her, as though looking right through her. She returned with a cool gaze of her own, but found little more than what she had already gauged.

"Admiral, if you will," Captain Lee gestured behind him to his ready room. The admiral nodded, and regally walked past him, into the ready room, the captain behind her. She turned as soon as the doors closed behind him, but he was already headed to his desk. Once he sat, he gestured to the guest chair, and she sat.

"So, what brings you to my ship, Admiral?" Captain Lee opened with his fingers templed in front of him. The admiral maintained his level gaze, offering a small smile.

"You see little need for small talk. I like that. I'll cut to the chase, then: What do you know about Unimatrix Zero?" Lee's eyes hardened slightly.

"Former Borg drones, who broke free from the Collective and mounted a rebellion. Thanks largely to your efforts, Admiral, as I recall. Ever since the Collective collapsed nine months ago, ever more former drones have joined Unimatrix Zero, which has established itself as a space-going nation that has allied itself with the Federation. However, a number of other former Borg drones have refused to join, and are now using Borg technology for their own means."

"Many liberated races have begun taking revenge against their former oppressors, before their assimilation by the Borg," Janeway acknowledged with a nod. "Along with Romulan, Klingon, and even Cardassian former drones returning home with their prizes, and the situation is quickly getting out of hand. One of our ships, the _Zhukov,_ was on a deep space reconnaissance mission to locate a rumored central hub, where several factions have been organizing and producing new Borg vessels. However, we lost contact with her two weeks ago, and Unimatrix Zero reports that they have picked up a few rogue Borg communications regarding the vessel's disappearance, along with one of their own spheres. But, not their destruction." Janeway leaned back in her chair, pushing a stray lock of auburn hair behind her ear.

"If the _Zhukov_ found the central hub, it is imperative we locate her, get the needed information, and take out the installation as quickly as possible. Now,as I understand it, the _Sojourner _has recently finished her refit to _Voyager_ standard?" Captain Lee nodded.

"The production model _Delta Flyer_ has been integrated into our shuttle pool without too much work. The Borg-modified astrometrics lab is nearly finished, along with the Borg modifications to the sensors, weapons, and shields. My chief engineer believes we can be ready for operational deployment in two, maybe three days." Lee smiled slightly. "The hull armor's been installed for a while now, but we've still received no word on either getting the _Voyager _stealth technology, or the torpedoes. My inquiries into getting them are never answered."

"Unfortunately, those technologies have been classified and relocated," Janeway replied flatly. "Our hull armor is not seen as so much of a threat as are the other technologies we… Brought back."

"Well, all of the upgrades are certainly major improvements, but even with them, we can't take on a Borg sphere, much less a major base of operations," Lee returned with a slight edge.

"Who says you'd have to?"

"If the _Zhukov_ found something big, there's little doubt that the other ex-Borg are going to be looking for her too. And one little _Intrepid-_class starship, even with the new armor, isn't going to be near enough protection." Lee knit his fingers, looking at Janeway curiously. Janeway observed him stoically.

"Are you arranging for us to get those torpedoes, or the stealth tech?"

"Like I said… They've been classified."

"This mission's classified, isn't it?"

Janeway smirked.

"Not that classified." Lee grimaced.

"Could we wrangle a cloak out of the Klingons?"

"Nope. You're going in with Task Force Pi," Janeway answered. She smiled in a slightly impish manner.

"The _Sojourner _will carry the ball. With your Borg upgrades you'll be the perfect ship to locate other Borg vessels, and, hopefully, the _Zhukov._" Lee nodded thoughtfully.

"Who is the task force commander?"

"Captain Koroshiya, of the USS _Archangel._ I have a feeling that even former Borg remember what a _Sovereign-_class starship did to them," Janeway noted with a predatory smile. Lee frowned.

"You aren't leading the task force, admiral?"

"I've been put in charge of upgrading all _Intrepid-_class starships in the fleet to _Voyager_ standard. However, this allows me to take _Voyager_ out along with the task force for slipstream testing, though I won't be in command of the fleet, no." The admiral smirked. "I sometimes wonder if Starfleet's keeping me in a position that doesn't allow me to screw around with the timeline again."

"You do have a considerably higher record of temporal violations than most other Starfleet captains… Even Kirk," Lee observed mildly. Janeway chuckled.

"You've done your homework."

"Always do… Well, when it counts for something. That's why I failed Theoretical Neutrino Variances," Lee noted dryly. "Couldn't see what the hubbub was about."

"Was that the class taught by Professor Ferrowright? I think I used that class to catch up on my sleep," Janeway shared with a small grin. Lee nodded.

"The same." Janeway sighed and leaned back in her chair again, before straightening and looking Captain Lee right in the eyes, unyielding this time.

"Captain… Adam… I've read your background."

"Standard protocol."

"I know about the incident aboard the _Endeavor,"_ Janeway continued carefully before being interrupted by the captain's snorted breath.

"Please, Admiral. If you thought I wasn't up to this mission, you wouldn't have come in person. Correct?" Janeway sighed and shook her head.

"No. I wouldn't."

"Then… All you need to do, is tell me what to do, and I will accomplish this mission," Lee inclined his head, holding Janeway's gaze. Janeway cringed.

"Actually, I came here personally because I'm assigning… An expert to this mission. Someone intimately familiar with Borg technology." Lee blinked, before narrowing his eyes.

"No." Janeway blinked.

"Excuse me?"

"No. _Nein._ No way. _Non._ _Bek!"_ Janeway glared.

"Captain-"

"Uh uh. Foul. _Ab'i._ _Cree nnk nkk!_"

"Captain!"

"Does not compute."

"Captain, you _will_ accept Miss Seven of Nine aboard this ship for this mission. Those are your orders!"

"Why not your old EMH? Surely he'd be better suited, right?"

"Captain, she's been free from the Collective for quite some time. If your concerns are on security I can assure you-"

"No, no… it's not that, Admiral. However… She is, well…" Janeway frowned in puzzlement.

"Yes?" Lee grimaced as though he was swallowing something foul.

"… Nevermind. It's merely personal differences between us, ma'am. She was rather… Rude, annoying, controlling, insensitive, in conclusion, a total bitch, ma'am!" Lee gritted his teeth.

"And those damn catsuits of hers! Can't she wear something _less_ likely to get her busted for prostitution on Bajor, ma'am?" Janeway sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Captain, she is a civilian. She is free to wear what she wishes, within reason. And she is the expert assigned to this mission. If you don't want her onboard, I'm sure we could move her to the _Archangel._ But, if this mission is to succeed, it requires her to actually be able to use Borg technology. And none of the other ships in TFΠ have had it installed. So, Captain, do you really want your personal feelings to sabotage this mission?" Lee glared deeply at her, a gaze filled with simmer hatred and despair just behind the pupils. But, before she could probe further, the mask was back in place, and Lee sighed in personal exasperation.

"No, Admiral. I will carry out my mission." Janeway nodded.

"Good. Now then, she will be aboard within the hour. After which, you will rendezvous with TFΠ, at coordinates which will be brought along by Seven. But… While I'm here, I was hoping I could talk with one of your crewmates. An old friend of mine…"

* * *

_To be continued..._

_A/N: I changed the name of Captain Lee's ship because _Sojourner_ has been used so rarely in _Star Trek _fiction as a name for a ship. I mean, the _Soujourner/Pathfinder_ mission to Mars in 1996 attracted more viewers than the moon landings!That's something that should be commemorated!Besides, _Aquarius _is more appropriate for a _Galaxy-_class starship, since they're named for great explorers (_Magellan),_ or famousmanned spacecraft _(Odyssey, Enterprise). _So there._


	2. Chapter 2

**_Star Trek: Babylon_**

_Andrew J. Talon

* * *

_

Admiral Janeway froze at the figure emerging from the sickbay. He turned and faced her, freezing as well. The two stared at each other.

"… Ensign Lessing,"

"Admiral," he grunted curtly. He then turned and headed off in the other direction. Janeway sighed, before continuing onwards and turning into the sickbay. Her face brightened immediately.

"Kes!" The blonde looked up from a medical console, and smiled broadly at the sight of the older woman.

"Captain! Or, should I say, admiral!" The blonde moved forward into a tight hug, which she didn't release as she moved backwards slightly and grinned at Janeway.

"I could not believe it when I heard you had made it!"

"I couldn't believe you came here! How did it… I can't believe it!" The Admiral gushed, her smile simply radiant. She then gasped, raising a few slim fingers to her ears. Her smooth, round ears. Kes swallowed slightly.

"I'm sorry… I… It's rather… Well…" Janeway raised an inquisitive eyebrow, as Kes turned away. Janeway crossed her arms.

"The captain didn't mention this in his report," the admiral observed dryly. Kes wrung her hands nervously.

"I'm afraid… Well… It's a long story," Kes murmured. Janeway looked over the Starfleet-issue uniform she was wearing, with her blue collar. The blonde turned back, frowning. She fidgeted slightly, suddenly extremely nervous.

"Q." Janeway nodded thoughtfully.

"Go on." Kes wrung her hands again.

"I evolved. I sent you closer to home. And then… I learned why the Caretaker used his weapons on Ocampa in the first place." Janeway made no movement or sound.

"Ocampa was ruled by others, who had reached my level of evolution. They behaved as gods… and had the people who didn't evolve worship them. And when the Caretaker and his people approached, for possible first contact-"

"They attacked… And the Caretaker had no choice but to defend himself," Janeway finished. "And the un-evolved members of your species suffered because your atmosphere was stripped of what it needed to make rain." Kes nodded.

"Yes… Unfortunately, not all of the evolved Ocampa were destroyed. One of them… A future version of me, you might say, took on their traits and was responsible for the attack on you some time ago." At Janeway's confused frown, Kes hurried on.

"In the realm of the evolved Ocampa, time is irrelevant. Many different versions of you can exist in it all at the same time, and versions of me also existed. One of them had spent considerable time with the other Ocampa. And she, well…" Kes looked away. Janeway sighed, shaking her head.

"Go on, Kes." Kes bit her lip before continuing.

"I found out what happened, with the other me. And I learned that the longer I stayed, the more versions of me appeared. All with my powers, all with such hatred…" The blonde sighed and looked Janeway directly in the eyes.

"I contacted Q. I wanted to return to mortality, to avoid any more versions of myself attacking or causing trouble. He said he could, but in return… I had to give up something."

"Being an Ocampan," the admiral confirmed. "Under the circumstances, I might have done the same thing." Kes looked back up at her.

"Admiral?" Janeway smiled comfortingly.

"Captain Lee seemed taken with you from the moment he recovered your escape pod. He wanted you to become his medical officer." Kes shrugged, suddenly sheepish.

"He was very kind, and needed a new doctor… And Starfleet had no problem with it." Janeway smiled.

"I'm glad to hear it. He has a certain penchant for picking up strays, hm?" Kes smiled.

"His own past was somewhat… Checkered. He seems to have little problem with others who have had similar problems." Janeway frowned.

"Ensign Lessing? Lieutenant Gilmore?" Kes's smile dimmed slightly.

"He gave them a chance no one else would, because he felt that their talents should not be wasted in jail or out in dishonorable discharges." The admiral nodded.

"Well… I just wanted to say hello. And when you get back, we'll have lots to talk about."

Kes's smile brightened up again, just as Janeway remembered.

"I look forward to it!" The admiral gave her one-time crewmember another hug, before turning. She paused at the exit from the sickbay.

"Oh, by the way. Feel free to bring along Captain Lee with you. If you loosened up the Doctor, imagine what you could do with him," the admiral departed with an impish smile and a swish of the doors, as Kes shook her head fondly, before going back to the various reports on her desk.

* * *

"Lieutenant, the communications system is not going to reformat itself, you know," squawked Commander Twee, floating menacingly over the Operations kiosk on the bridge. The young Bolian woman looked up at her XO with a hint of annoyance, blowing some stray white hair out of her eyes. 

"Sir, we're in the middle of a Level 1 diagnostic. The new Borg upgrades _still_ won't work with our communications array. We've had to take them apart and put them back together again _five times_ already." The dolphin made a deep squawking noise and a few chicken-like clucks, shaking his nose back and forth.

"Gah! Those Borg! Worse than sharks, and now we have to _act_ like sharks! Feh!" Twee rapidly descended into high-speed _Wei'iea, _what the dolphins called their language, and from the harsh whistles and barks it was obvious he was not happy. As the first officer floated away, Lieutenant Mitena Haro went back to her readings, her lips pursed in concentration.

"Ops to Main Engineering. Our secondary array is still offline. What's the story?"

"_The MIDAS uplink is still being integrated. We're trying to double the output of the entire communications system."_ The Bolian sighed.

"You've been saying that for hours now, Gilmore." The blonde paused over the comm.

"_Well, whoever did the last EPS replacement had to be on drugs. Who the hell jury-rigs the manifolds to run with the plasma coolant, crosswired with the subspace generators and God knows how many other systems?" _Haro grinned.

"Well, actually, Twee did it."

"_What!"_

"The commander was the chief engineer, and apparently, this configuration sounded 'harmonious'." Haro frowned.

"Of course, he made these adjustments after his promotion bash… And he had a few too many liquor fish…"

"_Oh, swell. Our ship's a horrible mutated freak because the old chief engineer was a drunken fish!"_

"Who are you calling a fish, you round-headed ape!" Squawked Twee, making Haro yelp. He had floated silently to the kiosk and had been listening to the entire exchange.

"_Er, commander, I didn't mean to-"_

"No, no," Twee whistled sadly. "I understand. And I am to blame for the ship's, er, irregularities. But still! _Borg_ technology!" Twee continued making more dolphin sounds of disgust and ill-humor, floating over to his chair and sliding one of his fins into a long, white glove lying on the seat. It hardened and stretched out, before flexing like a body builder's arm. After slipping on another, Twee picked up a PADD and began typing on it. Haro sighed.

"Now you've done it," the Bolian hissed to her communicator. "He's going to sulk for the rest of the day. And then, he's going to start singing the _Song of the Twleve._"

"_The what?"_ Gilmore asked. Haro groaned.

"You'll find out…"

* * *

Kes looked up from the chessboard and frowned in confusion. The captain, across from her, looked up at the ceiling of his quarters. 

"What is that… _Song of the Twelve?"_

"Third movement, if I'm not mistaken," Lee answered, raising an eyebrow. "'The Pained Retribution.'"

Kes looked over at Lee curiously. Lee smiled wryly.

"Twee's pride was hurt so now he's attempting to deliver the same pain in sound form to those who hurt him. It's an old dolphin custom, so that the entire pod may share and acknowledge the feeling." Kes nodded thoughtfully, frowning as the eerie, beautiful, and sorrow-filled song continued.

"Twee seems very sensitive."

"Well, he's actually just very dramatic," Lee smiled evilly. "He enjoys guilt tripping the crew into doing better." Kes shook her head with a small smile.

"I thought first officers were supposed to be feared and respected."

"Oh, he is respected, but he's just too cute to be feared. So he just guilt trips everyone into staying in line," Lee observed with a smirk. "It's actually very effective. I don't particularly enjoy having the crew adore me like some god on a pedestal." Kes shook her head with a knowing smile.

"They adore both of you, Adam. Twee keeps the crew light-hearted and focused, and you keep them brave and disciplined." Lee shrugged, moving a knight forward.

"Check." Kes frowned, before moving a bishop to counter. She then looked up at the captain curiously.

"Why do you do that?" Lee frowned.

"Excuse me?" Kes sighed and glared at him.

"You always do that. Have a self-deprecating tone when I compliment you." Lee frowned, leaning backwards.

"I'm not comfortable with compliments. That's just how I am."

Kes frowned.

"I can't feel your emotions. I'm so used to this faint pressure, this background noise." Kes frowned. "And without feeling this, I have trouble understanding, why you are as you are."

"You're learning how to get along without one of your primary senses," Lee noted. "My grandmother went blind when I was twelve." Kes nodded.

"I know I gave up those powers for the greater good. I'm glad I could prevent more of me doing such terrible things. But without them…" Kes sighed.

"Being human can be… Tiring."

"Tell me about it," Lee chuckled. "Checkmate." Kes blinked, and looked down at the board. She then glared at him.

"You moved my pieces." Lee raised an eyebrow.

"Did not." Kes's glare deepened.

"Yes you did! I had a bishop right here!"

"No, not that I can recall," the captain observed. Kes reached across the table, and grabbed his wrist, pulling his hand into sight. She pulled open his fingers, and in exasperation, held up her missing bishop. Lee shrugged.

"You've been getting better." Kes crossed her arms and glared at him.

"What? There's no specific rule against 'appropriating' another player's pieces."

"Yes there is! Do you always have to win?" Lee shrugged.

"No… I don't. It just helps." Lee smiled disarmingly. "I am sorry. It was thoughtless of me." Kes rolled her eyes, shaking her head with a slightly amused expression on her face.

"Captain, really… You need to grow up."

"Growing up is overrated," Lee chuckled, setting up the pieces again. "I won't cheat this time. I promise."

"You'd better not, or I'm giving you a _double_ physical this year," Kes threatened. Lee grimaced.

"Are you sure it's only evolved Ocampans who are evil? Because you, my dear doctor, are becoming quite the sadist." He laughed as she bounced her white queen off his forehead. Kes scowled deeply at him.

"_Adam!"_

"Honestly, Kes, I was only kidding! Seriously!"

"Triple physicals! With _phaser_ enemas, I swear it!"

"You sinister fiend! OW! Hey, stop with the throwing already!"

"Take that! And that! I'll put you in the sickbay yet!"

"You need only ask! Ack!"

Crewmembers passing the door to the captain's quarters only smiled at the shenanigans of their eccentric captain, and loveable CMO, before cringing at the XO's continuing performance and hurrying on their way.

* * *

_To be continued..._

_A/N: Here's the extended version of the chapter. Enjoy! Additionally, I'd like to note that I will be dropping culture reference gags throughout this story, much like the real writers of Star Trek. Feel free to look for them and point them out._

_Oh yes: I do not like Seven of Nine. I much preferred Kes, which is why I brought her back. The Ocampans will play a part in this novel as time goes on, but how much of one has yet to be decided. And no, Captain Lee is not Captain Kirk-He's got too many issues to have a wild one-night stand, much less a steady, loving relationship. He needs to grow up a bit. At least he's got Kes to help him out, right? He'll need all the help he can get._


	3. Chapter 3

_**Star Trek: Babylon**_

_Andrew J. Talon

* * *

_

"I fail to recall _why_ we're shooting our way out of the starbase," Marla Gilmore noted to her captain, ducked behind a wall, as the sounds of phaser blasts filled the air. Adam Lee smiled.

"Because they shot first." He shot off several blasts around the corner, before pulling back, narrowly avoiding another barrage. "It's only polite."

"Why can we _never_ just walk out of a starbase? Just once?" The engineer complained. Lee sighed, firing some more shots.

"We'll discuss that later… provided there is a later. Is _Firefly _in range yet?" Lee asked. Marla turned and dove back into the access panel, quickly running a few tools over the ODN lines and isolinear chips. She grumbled.

"Transport inhibiters just went up… Give me a few seconds."

"Oh no, take your time," Lee muttered, setting his phaser to wide-beam and firing, filling the corridor with deadly nadion bursts. Yellow-collared Starfleet personnel took cover, before coming back out and letting loose return fire. Lee cursed, switching out his spent phaser power pack for a fresh one.

"Marla?"

"Hang on…."

"Marla, you know I hate to rush you, but," Lee pressed, grimacing at the increasing number of security guards firing on their meager cover.

"Got it!" At that moment, the two vanished in transporter beams, the phaser-filled corridor being replaced by a cramped transporter room. Mitena Haro was standing next to the modest transporter control panel, and received a glare from Lee.

"Haro-"

"Captain, sir, I did it as fast as possible!" She protested. "But Twee, well…"

"Well what, Haro?"

"He still had some tuna in the transporter memory," the Bolian nervously answered. Lee groaned, before running out through the hatch and down the central corridor of the small vessel. He was vaguely aware of Haro following him and Marla heading down to the _Firefly's_ engine room.

The "bridge" was little more than an enlarged cockpit, with large forward windows instead of a view screen like on bigger ships. Twee cocked his head slightly from the co-pilot station, head partially out of the forcefield "aquarium" he used to do his duties on the dry parts of the ship.

"Captain, I'm sorry! I completely forgot about the fish and-"

"Save it for when we're not about to die," Lee interrupted, sliding into the pilot's seat and checking the _Firefly's _status.

"They are closing the main doors." Warned his weapons officer, Wyn, standing at the tactical console on the port bulkhead. Lee nodded fractionally at the cyborg, taking the _Firefly_ to full impulse.

"If I may note, captain: The starbase runabouts are scrambling," Wyn added in her monotone. Lee was starting to wonder why she couldn't have gotten a more interesting sounding voice for her replacement voicebox after the accident that made her into a cyborg, but put this aside as the gigantic doors of the starbase began to close before the tiny _Firefly._

"Shields up. Charge weapons. Marla, prepare the smokescreen," Lee ordered.

"_Roger, sir,_" Marla spoke over the intercom, while Wyn switched the weapons console to full power.

"Phasers are ready. Photon torpedoes are as well."

"Good. Do we have warp power?"

"Sir, if I may remind you-" Wyn began, before Lee raised a hand to silence her.

"Yes, yes, warp drive bad in spacedock. I got that."

"Didn't you say 'Warp drive plus spacedock equals boom?'" Queried Haro.

"I thought it was more along the lines of 'Spacedocks are no place for warp drive'," suggested Twee.

"_Wasn't it 'Activating the warp drive in space dock is like striking a match on an oil slick?'" _Gilmore contributed.

"Computer, pause program," Kes spoke loudly and clearly. She sighed and shook her head, as Haro turned and blinked at her. The former Ocampan had had enough.

"What? What is it this time?" Haro asked anxiously.

"Why do you persist in making the characters outlets for your lame jokes?" Kes asked with a long-suffering tone. Haro shrugged.

"I dunno… I thought it would be funny. I mean, they are supposed to be a rough-and-tumble crew. No Starfleet morals, no stiff regulations, laid back, maybe a little jaded and goofy-"

"Yes, but continuing a joke this long makes it _less_ humorous, not more," Kes pressed. The blonde doctor rubbed her forehead. "I liked everything else… It's very…"

"Swashbuckling?" Asked Haro hopefully. Kes raised an eyebrow.

"It certainly is that." The Bolian looked down, following Kes's gaze. She smiled sheepishly at the breeches, high-leather boots, black, tight jacket, knives and phasers hanging from her utility belt. _Didn't she get that in the mail…?_

"Er, well… yes. This is what _real_ freighter and smuggler captains wear. It's cool, in a very retro sort of way."

"Cool?" Kes asked, puzzled.

"It's a euphemism for 'wonderful', or 'in style'," Haro explained. Kes nodded, smiling.

"Tom Paris used to say that a lot… It's from the 20th century?"

"Yes. Slang. It's making a comeback," Haro grinned. She shook her head slightly, before turning her eyes to the Captain Lee hologram.

"I'm not sure about how much facial hair to give him. Should I give him more, or less?"

"He looks rugged enough," Kes noted with a small smile. "He'd appreciate looking so…"

"Handsome?" Asked Haro teasingly. Kes glared at her.

"However, Wyn's breasts are _not_ that big," the blonde pointed to the android. Haro shrugged.

"Creative license. She'd probably appreciate it."

"She wouldn't appreciate how cold you made her. She gets enough Vulcan jokes as it is," Kes sighed, crossing her arms at the younger woman. Haro fidgeted.

"Well… Okay… I guess I wanted her to be a bit of a parody."

"Of…?" Prompted Kes.

"… Seven of nine," muttered Haro. Kes groaned, feeling a headache coming on.

"Please… No more about her. I've had enough trouble being _near_ her as of late…"

"Tell me about it."

* * *

_Huh… Is that a speck on the viewscreen?_

"… in addition to your inefficient management of the EPS junction, which has now rendered all my upgrades useless thanks to your incompetence…"

_This chair is lumpy. Wonder if it's the same one we've had since _Sojourner_ was launched. Oh, look at that, the carpet patterns… They look like a _sehlat…

"… Your captain's list is also inefficient. He continues to follow obsolete protocols for no other reason that self gratification. His entire command has fallen prey to his own inadequacies and deficiencies…"

_What's that buzzing sound? It's annoying…_

"-aptain? Captain? Are you allright?" Lee blinked, and shook his head to clear the cobwebs.

"Hm? Yes? What is it, ensign?" The young Bajoran woman looked pleadingly at her from the ops console, while Seven of Nine raised an inquiring eyebrow. Cortical node implant thingy, whatever.

"Er, sir, Miss Seven… Nine… Miss Seven of Nine was, er-"

"I was asking you a question, _Captain,"_ Seven emphasized by speaking in a somewhat more _monotone_ monotone. Lee waved a hand.

"Yes?"

"Why is it you persist in having your first officer also act as flight controller? It is most inefficient," the former drone repeated. Lee shrugged, then turned to Twee, who was whistling a happy tune at the conn station in front of the viewscreen.

"Twee, why do I persist in making you do two jobs?"

"Because I asked! And I enjoy both activities!" Twee chirped gleefully, waving his tail in a circular motion at Seven, as his cybernetic gloves flew over the console screen. Lee smothered a smile as Seven merely raised an eyebrow. Cortical node. Whatever.

"I do not suckle my mother as an adult, Commander," Seven stated. Lee grimaced. _So she's familiar with dolphin body language…_

"Well, stop acting like it!" Growled the commander. "Your job is to help us find the Borg! Not grade all of our departments! Isn't that right Captain?"

"Perfectly, though I would have left out the last part," Lee noted dryly. Twee's tail fins drooped slightly.

"Sorry. Bit of a bad habit. I need to keep my tail language cleaner."

"I do not appreciate being talked to in that fashion, Commander," Seven ground out icily. "It will be in my final report to Starfleet Command."

"Lovely," Lee sighed. "He then turned to his chair console. "Hm… This is odd. A thoron leak in the Astrometrics lab? Ops, are you getting this as well?"

"Yes sir. It's very unusual," the ensign replied, frowning. Seven sighed.

"It seems I must repair another mistake made by your crew, captain," the former drone stated, turning and heading off the bridge to the turbolift. The ensign blinked at the new readings she now received.

"Captain? The thoron leak is gone. I don't know how, but…" She trailed off at the laughter coming from the first officer and the captain. Her eyes lit up in realization.

"Captain, really…"

"Of course, ensign, you have every right to note this in the log," Lee spoke in an official voice once he'd gotten his laughter under control. "As a perfect example of the commanding officers acting in a most unbecoming fashion for Starfleet officers."

"Indeed. It is a most grievous breach of discipline," added Twee in an equally serious tone. Well, as serious as a dolphin's voice can get.

"What incident, Captain? Commander? All I saw was a thoron leak come and go," the ensign replied, in an entirely too-innocent manner. The first officer and captain grinned at eachother before beginning to laugh again.

"Ah, Ensign Saffron-You'll go far," Lee declared. The young woman blushed slightly.

"Thank you sir."

"Really now, Captain. You do not need to commit your pranks while _I'm_ off the bridge," came a hardened, female voice. Lee turned in his chair and smiled at the tall woman who had just emerged from the turbolift. Her pale skin, scarlet irises, slightly raised ears, and hostile bearing identified her as a former Angosian super soldier. The lieutenant's eyes swept over the bridge, missing nothing, as she assumed her traditional station at tactical/security.

"Lieutenant Wyn, you seem to take all the fun out of our pranks when you're around," Lee noted dryly. "Mainly because they involve training." Lee shuddered, as though training was a worse fate than assimilation. Wyn sniffed.

"Practical jokes have much in common with covert operations. I merely felt it would be more effective to burn both bridges with one torch."

"At ease, Lieutenant. Your idea is brilliant. I just doubt that the crew would get as much of a laugh out of killing victims of practical jokes as simply humiliating them," Lee opined. Wyn's brow wrinkled.

"I do not think they would mind one death, provided the victim was the right person," she murmured darkly. Lee sighed.

"I know, I know-Seven of Nine's presence is hard on all of us, Wyn. But we need to bear the spears if we're to accomplish our mission." Wyn nodded approvingly.

"You would have made a good Angosian soldier, sir," the tactical/security officer observed. Lee smiled and shrugged modestly.

"Learned from the best."

"Captain, flirting is not allowed on the bridge!" Twee squawked, raising a single cybernetic glove to point at a sign attached to the side of the viewscreen. It had been intended as a joke by members of the crew, a list of dos and do-nots for the bridge, where anyone could contribute a new rule that could be disobeyed. Right under "NO WHISTLING" was written "NO FLIRTING". Lee shook his head.

"Angosians don't flirt, Commander," the captain corrected. "Therefore, I could not possibly be flirting with the Lieutenant, correct Wyn?"

"Correct, sir," Wyn deadpanned, going back to her work.

* * *

The USS _Archangel_ was one of the few, but growing number of, _Sovereign-_class starships in use by the Federation Starfleet. They were easily the most advanced, most powerful, and fastest vessels ever created by Starfleet, the newest flagship of the Federation, the _Enterprise-E_ herself, a member of the class. 

Which led to the question posed by her captain: How the hell did a tactical fighter squadron leader get command of one of these ships?

Captain, now Commodore,William Koroshiya, a human born in Chicago, had asked that question a number of times: To his superiors, to his subordinates, and to himself, all when he first came aboard. On that same day, however, he had stared back into the ebony reflection in the porthole of his ready room. And the answer came as clear as day.

The _Soveriegn,_ while designed for exploration, was also meant to fight. And he was a fighting man. And it was fighting men the Federation had needed when he was given command of this dreadnought.

"Enemy fighter closing! His shields are at twenty-one percent! Collision course!" Warned his tactical officer. Koroshiya's gaze burned into the viewscreen, showing the kamikaze attacker screaming for them.

"Bring us down 20 degrees! All dorsal phasers fire on my mark!" The _Archangel_ seemed to bow, presenting her back to the kamikaze.

"_MARK!"_

At once, eight deadly beams of light burst from the _Archangel,_ converging on the lone fighter and blowing it apart in an instant. A pair of it's fellows, coming in to attack the belly of the starship, met the _Archangel's_ ventral phaser arrays, and ended their lives in bursts of plasma and flame.

"Dominion battleship is firing weapons!" The bridge shook, the red alert klaxons blaring. Koroshiya coolly regarded the massive warship, closing in on his much smaller _Sovereign. _

"Helm, collision course. Stand by all phasers and quantum torpedoes. Full power to forward shields!" The great starship deftly maneuvered to charge the massive battleship, polaron blasts striking her protective shield skin in a constant barrage. Koroshiya maintained his calm, even as his operations officer warned of the ship's increasingly dire condition.

"Shields at fifty percent… Thirty-five… Twenty-eight…"

"Adjust deflector to match enemy weapon's frequency," Koroshiya ordered. "Prepare a full deflector burst… Fire." The _Archangel's_ forward deflector glowed bright blue, with an answering blue energy burst surrounding the Dominion warship.

"Their shields are disrupted!"

"FIRE! ALL WEAPONS!"

The _Archangel_ never resembled her namesake more than in this moment, her dozens of phaser banks lashing out with bolts of destructive energy, her photon and quantum torpedo launchers spitting blue and gold stars of death that blasted through the massive battleship's armor like cardboard. As the _Archangel_ pulled off, the last torpedo they fired impacted the enemy ship's core, and it exploded in a huge fireball, quickly snuffed by the vacuum of space.

"All right… End combat simulation. Secure from red alert," Koroshiya ordered. Like magic, the bridge changed from a damaged, smoke-filled ruin to its original, pristine condition. The commodore looked around at his bridge crew with a smile.

"Nicely done, Ensign Kusanagi. Your suggestion to present a broadside to our enemies worked very well, wouldn't you agree, Mr. Osborne?" The security chief nodded behind the weapons console, while the helmsman blushed in the praise.

"Ah, th-thankyou, Commodore!"

"The deflector pulse idea wasn't bad, Lieutenant Hatsuo, but we got kind of singed in it's execution," Koroshiya then told the engineering officer at her station on the bridge. The tall, purple-haired woman harrumphed and crossed her arms.

"If we'd followed through with the shield modifications I'd suggested, it wouldn't have been a problem… Sir," Hatsuo Kazami added as an afterthought. Koroshiya nodded, hiding his amusement, before sitting back down in his chair.

"Miss Mizuho… Fleet status?" The lovely pink-haired woman at the operations console smiled cheerfully, while the ensign next to her blushed even more.

"The _Eagle, Nadia, Mustang, Zero, Spitfire, _and _Challenger_ all report nominal status. However, the _Sojourner, Voyager, _and _Mizayaki_ have yet to arrive." Koroshiya harrumphed.

"Fastest class of cruisers in the fleet, indeed. Alert me when they arrive, lieutenant. Until then, Mr. Marik? You have the bridge."

"Very good, sir," the Vulcan first officer nodded with a blank expression, moving up from his chair at the side of the captain, to the center chair itself. Koroshiya turned and walked to his ready room, while Captain Marik began issuing some orders that William chose not to listen to.

He was off duty now-Better to make the most of it in resting up for the next crisis than wasting it, he thought.

* * *

_To be continued..._

_A/N: Mwahahahaha! Fear the rampant anime and scifi references!_


	4. Chapter 4

**_Star Trek: Babylon_**

_Andrew J. Talon

* * *

_

"Okay; How is it the plasma injectors are constricted for the second time today?" Marla sighed, looking down at the main floor of engineering. The tall warp core dominated the center of the cavernous room, its soft blue glow gently washing over everything as the matter/anti-matter swirls mixed together.

"Sorry sir. Looks like the Borg modifications are still pushing some systems too hard," Chief Barn apologized loudly, his voice echoing eerily. Marla grimaced, before waving a tricorder in front of her, muttering under her breath.

"God damned… If we don't get the slipstream drive up and running in the next hour, we're gonna have to call _Voyager_ to give us a tow to the rendezvous point," the blonde called out with a touch of anger to her voice. The engineering crew quickened their pace, knowing that this tone promised _unpleasant_ things to any slackers. All the while, Seven of Nine worked diligently at the control console adjacent the warp core itself, not taking note of anything around her.

"I'm sorry sir. The system's getting close to another crash. Seven's doing all she can… Seven! Estimates!" Marla cried out while the commbadge was still on. A shout of indignation came over the small device on her breast, making Marla wince.

"Er, sorry sir."

"_Just keep the volume down, please?"_ Captain Lee asked with an ironic drawl. "_I rather like my ears. I really don't want to get replacements."_

"Aye sir…"

"Lieutenant. The plasma injectors are now fully operational," reported Seven from down below. Marla looked down over the railing and nodded in a slightly exaggerated fashion so that the blonde ex-drone would see.

"Roger that. Are we ready for slipstream?"

"Affirmative. A thirty point seven five three-minute transit will put us precisely within ten thousand kilometers of Task Force Pi," Seven replied evenly. Marla nodded with a smile.

"Very good then. Captain?"

"_I heard. Good job, everyone. Seven, begin-"_

"I am transferring the navigational information to the helm now, Captain," Seven cut him off, her fingers flying over the control surface. "Initiate slipstream in fifty seconds. Raise metaphasic shields and prepare for jump."

There was silence for a moment.

"_Right, thank you Seven. Bridge out."

* * *

_

"Okay… _When_ was she made captain?" Wyn turned at her station, to raise an eyebrow at the annoyed looking Haro leaning in the Ops kiosk.

"Lieutenant Haro. Such comments are unbecoming of an officer," the Angosian commented briskly. Haro stuck out her tongue.

"So is _pretending_ to be an officer," the Bolian harrumphed. Lee shook his head and sighed.

"Haro, Wyn: Relax. She's being pushy, big deal. Once we get to the task force, we can ship her over to _Voyager,_ let them handle her," the captain surmised, checking the readings on his armrest screens. "Mitena, raise the metaphasic shields. Wyn? Secure all non-essential systems, and set the ship for jump." A computer notification sounded over the ship's communications grid, announcing the impending slipstream and advising the crew to their emergency stations.

Off-duty engineers went to main engineering to serve as back-up crew. At the same time, security personnel (wearing the same gold collars as their siblings in engineering) went to the armory and brig. The blue-collared science specialists reported to sickbay and strategically placed triage units, along with red-collared field medics and regular medical crewmembers. Emergency force fields went up around critical areas to protect them from hull breaches, while the _Sojourner_ herself acquired a glowing, green-tinged shield outlining her silhouette perfectly.

On the bridge, Captain Lee stood up, pulled down his uniform top slightly, and nodded to a grinning Twee. Well, Twee was always grinning, since he was a dolphin, but he was grinning more than usual.

"Excited, Number One?"

"Very," Twee confirmed. Lee smiled back.

"Ready to go?"

"Just drop the tuna, and we're off!" The dolphin commander squeaked gleefully. He was whistling and singing in his native tongue, letting out a particularly loud whistle that made Noah Lessing at the science station jump in surprise. He looked around, eyes wide for a moment.

"Relax, Mr. Lessing," soothed Twee. The science officer nodded marginally.

"Right, sorry sir… Just, well… Was surprised, that's all."

"You'll get used to it," Lee grinned encouragingly at the taller ensign, who nodded sheepishly before turning back to his readings. Lee turned at the sound of the turbolift doors opening, and his grin softened.

"Ms. Seven."

"Captain," the ex-drone returned, nodding to him, before taking the mission ops console. She either didn't see, or ignored, Haro making goofy faces at her.

"Slipstream in twenty seconds, Captain," Seven reported. Lee nodded.

"You may wish to sit down, sir," Seven advised. Lee shrugged.

"I'm good."

"As you wish," the blonde said in an almost exasperated fashion. Lee raised an eyebrow, but said nothing else, as Seven began the countdown.

"Ten… Nine… Eight… Seven… Six… Five… Four… Three… Two—"

"_One!"_ Twee screeched, hitting the button. The starfield in the viewscreen was swallowed up by a pool of green that flashed brightly, before the rays of that flash bent and began moving around the ship itself. And in that new swirling green vortex, just barely in sight, was a speck of black.

"Night at the end of the tunnel," Lessing murmured softly. Lee smiled.

"Status?"

"Slipstream's stable, captain. Exit in thirty-seven minutes," Haro reported with a bright smile. Lee returned it, feeling jovial despite the mood-killing former drone now observing him like she might a coffee stain.

"Good work, Ms. Seven."

"… Thank you," she said uncertainly, her expression of disdain changing to one of soft embarrassment. She then quickly turned away and walked to the turbolift, its doors sliding shut with a soft hiss. Lee frowned, and then sat down, looking thoughtfully out at the subspace tunnel they were sliding through.

"Man… She's like, all moody," Haro observed with her usual level of tact.

"She was assimilated by the Borg at the age of eight," Lessing reminded her, glaring up at the goofy Bolian. "Let's see you walk away from that with your head completely in order."

"Nah, I'd never be assimilated," Haro grinned. "Captain says I'd crash the Collective faster than those old computers, what were they called?"

"My'rosoff," Lee supplied. "The first commercial computer company in Bolian history. Made billions by ripping off the good people of Bolarus with sub-standard components wrapped up in a fancy shell. One of the most infamous financial scandals in the history of the Alpha Quadrant." Lessing blinked and stared at his captain.

"How is it you know that, but she doesn't?" The young black man asked in astonishment. Haro shrugged with her usual devil-may-care grin.

"I slept through all my history classes. The captain's an anthropologist!"

"Well, I minored in it," Lee corrected. "Didn't get my doctorate in it."

"Might as well have," Haro gushed. "He helped me write my first holonovel: 'Sheng-Hai: A Chinese-Dominated Earth leading the Federation'. I would have gotten all the cultural references I needed eventually with my ready sources-"

"You were using fortune cookies," Lee deadpanned. Lessing cracked up, while Twee whistled in good humor and Wyn fought back a smile. Haro blushed dark blue.

"… Er… They were expensive fortune cookies?" She offered weakly.

* * *

_Here… I am here… This is the present. _

_The past is not here. The future is not here. This is the now. The now is my sanctuary. The now is my peace. There is no fear in the now. There is no anxiety. There is only me—_

The door chimed. Mizuho opened a single eye.

"Enter." The doors opened, and the familiar tall shape of Commodore Koroshiya came into the dark quarters, the light from the corridor outside casting a long square on the carpet. The commodore turned and looked at Mizuho, sitting on an ornate pillow in the middle of several dozen candles.

"Is this a bad time?" He asked. Mizuho shook her head.

"No. Please, sit, Commodore." Koroshiya held a moment longer, before carefully walking over to her, the door closing silently behind him. He sat on the pillow Mizuho indicated with her eyes, and arranged his legs in a semi-lotus position. Even while sitting, he seemed to loom over her, she contemplated. The dark skinned man could dominate an entire room with but one deliberate movement.

"You have questions." It was a statement she uttered without the slightest hint of a question. Koroshiya nodded.

"You know, as well as I do what the MIDAS array picked up from Sector 5336A. Some of these readings are similar to the drive readings we got off your ship." The pink haired woman nodded slightly.

"Yes. They are. Mother and Maho have also confirmed it." Koroshiya frowned.

"You warned of an invasion attempt by your people when you first came here. We were able to stop it in time, seal the rift, and make sure they could not target our galaxy again."

"Yes. And no, we did not miscalculate. Our methods ensured that all their test data, all their navigational information was gone. They did not even know which galaxy we were in… Only able to open a rift to where our ship was." Koroshiya shifted.

"And yet…"

"I know what it looks like," Mizuho confessed quietly. "But the scans… They are… Wrong. Somehow, they are not… Right."

At the commodore's silence, she hurried on.

"My race is telepathic only with the right type of technology. The kind of technology we use to pilot and control our ships. And yes… The sensors, myself and my sister and mother, we all feel something similar to it at work in that sector—But it is not my people. It _feels_ wrong, for lack of a better comparison." Koroshiya nodded and sighed deeply, the weight he felt on his shoulders not abating. Mizuho felt an instinct to try and touch him, comfort him, but she caught herself. Even though she herself was half-human, and had lived in the Federation for so long, she still had these instincts. These were the instincts of her mother's race.

The same race that had been determined to find the species that had "defiled" one of their daughters: A daughter that happened to be a member of one of the most powerful ruling families in the empire. She was, in fact, the one who had done the defiling.

"The Onegai dissolved the Galactic Federation of their galaxy and assumed total control," Mizuho whispered. "They formed an empire, declared martial law, and plunged nearly every race into war… All because of me. All because I wanted to find my father on Earth." The alien hybrid stared into a candle, eyes downcast. Koroshiya stayed silent, and the two sat in the stillness for a time. Mizuho was unsure exactly how long.

"… It may be worse than my people coming here," she said at last. "It may be some new enemy. One I have no knowledge of. One I cannot help against."

"Mizuho… You always help. You're a part of my crew, after all." The pink-haired woman looked up, blinking owlishly at the commodore. "Whatever we meet out there, we'll meet it as we always have. One hand open and out…"

"With our other holding a phaser behind our back," Mizuho finished. Koroshiya grinned toothily.

"Exactly. I'll expect your in-depth analysis of the anomaly in the morning."

"Aye sir."

"Now, get some sleep. Don't spend all your time… Doing whatever it is you're doing," Koroshiya frowned at the candles floating everywhere. "Is this some kind of…?"

"No, it's not a ritual. The candles just relax me," Mizuho answered matter-of-factly. Koroshiya nodded, before slowly, gracefully standing up, nodding once again, and heading out the door. Mizuho sighed, and closed her eyes once again.

"You know, he's quite a looker." Mizuho grimaced.

"Mother, please…"

"Forget about Kei. The commodore's… What's that Earth candy called?"

"Mother…" Mizuho admonished gently. Matsuo emerged from behind a curtain, smiling naughtily.

"Oh, that's right… Dark chocolate. Mmm…"

"Out, please," Mizuho said flatly. The assistant engineering officer (and general ship floozy) shook her head with a gay smile.

"You should really lighten up, dear. No man wants to sleep with some girl with a knot in her curls."

"Mother, _please…"_

"Oh fine. Hmph." The shapely woman walked out in a huff, leaving Mizuho to resume her meditation.

* * *

_To be continued..._

_A/N: Yes, Mizuho, Matsuo, Maho, Kei, and Koishi are all borrowed from _Please, Teacher_! The _Onegai _is a gag on the Japanese title of the anime, _Onegai Sensei! _Next time, we get to look in on the _Starship Voyager,_ and maybe get a look at what really _is_ on the other side of that anomaly. Until then, read and review._


	5. Chapter 5

_**Star Trek: Babylon**_

_Andrew J. Talon

* * *

_

The subspace sensors aboard the _Archangel_ were specially tuned to detect and track unusual subspace distortions. Considering that the Borg, the main reason for the _Sovereign-_class starship's creation, used artificial subspace distortions to travel throughout the galaxy, it was little wonder Lieutenant Mizuho's console lit up the instant such an event occurred.

"Slipstream event, bearing three five seven, mark two one five," Mizuho announced, to which the bridge crew went to work. Captain Marik stood and took the first officer's station, as Commodore Koroshiya took his usual place at center.

"Onscreen." Immediately, the holographic viewscreen shifted from its standard view of sensor tracks nearby the _Archangel,_ to a real-time image of a swirling green vortex. Out of which soon appeared two small, sleek vessels. Koroshiya smiled even before the IFF signals were received.

"Confirmed. It's _Voyager_ and _Miyazaki,"_ reported Osborne at the tactical station. "Admiral Janeway is hailing us."

"Onscreen." The familiar bun came into view first, before the admiral looked up and smiled wanly into the viewer.

_"Commodore Koroshiya! A pleasure to see you again."_

"Likewise, Admiral," Koroshiya grinned. "Nice to see you're still bad at keeping a schedule."

"_Well, when you're_ _seven years overdue on a three-week mission, it seems somewhat silly to rush around anymore,"_ the admiral laughed. She then frowned.

"_Where is the_ Sojourner? _I thought Captain Lee was supposed to be here by now."_

"They sent ahead a message saying that they were having difficulties with the slipstream drive. Seven was working on it." Janeway nodded thoughtfully.

"_We'll wait one more hour, and then we'll go get them. I told Seven to keep the upgrades simple, but…"_ Janeway sighed. "_That's what I get for teaching her to go her own way."_

"Kids, huh?" Koroshiya smiled. Janeway smiled back, before turning back to her Tactical officer, the serious-looking Lieutenant Kim. A motion from her, and the channel closed. Koroshiya sighed fondly, settling back in his chair.

"Commodore? When did you meet the Admiral?" Asked Kei at the helm. Koroshiya smiled.

"The academy. I was actually her classmate. She annoyed the hell out of me though," the commodore confessed.

"Her reactions were logical, considering your ignorance of her feelings towards you," Marik noted dispassionately. Matsuo, up on the engineering station, snickered.

"Considering that sharp chin, I'm not surprised."

"She is very beautiful, mother," Mizuho interjected. Matsuo snorted.

"She looks like a man."

"Only if you ignore the whole package," Osborne noted with a grin. Koroshiya shook his head.

"Are we really discussing the sex appeal of an admiral?"

"We have discussed numerous subjects similar to this one before," observed Marik. Koroshiya shook his head, groaning.

"Yeah… Not exactly a puritan locale, this ship," Osborne grinned.

"The Puritans had no problem with sex: Provided it was within marriage," put forth Mizuho, head bent over her console. Captain Marik raised an eyebrow.

"Indeed. It is a shame more of their culture did not survive. It may have allowed humanity a greater sense of unity and control." Koroshiya smirked.

"Yes, well, we can't all be Vulcans, Marik. As I recall, you had more than your fair share of trouble with the opposite sex at the Academy." Marik's non-expression darkened very slightly.

"Yes. However, the subject is irrelevant to such discussions."

"What is it, Marik? Do you get squeamish around this subject?" Teased Matsuo. Marik raised an eyebrow.

"Vulcans do not get 'squeamish', Miss Kazami. We are able to keep our passions from interfering with our lives, permitting us greater abilities in problem solving, and granting greater unity. Slaking your lusts only creates disorder and mistrust." Matsuo looked like she'd been slapped, while Koroshiya hid a grin. For an ensign, Matsuo was rather pushy and loud-mouthed. Her aristocratic background with the Onegai was probably to blame. Now, she glared daggers into the back of Marik's head, as his most trusted officer went to work on his reports.

"So, what ever happened between you and the Admiral, if you don't mind me asking sir?" Kei forged ahead, oblivious of the danger in continuing the subject. Before Matsuo could bark at the ensign and cut him to shreds, Koroshiya stepped in.

"We dated, and then parted as good friends. It was a happy ending, all told." The ensign smiled, before turning back to work.

_That kid owes me. Big time,_ the commodore thought, considering Matsuo as she griped at a few other engineers over the comms system, stabbing the control panels with more force than necessary. She was edgy, unpredictable, and sometimes violent: A stark contrast with her calm, rational, caring daughter at the Ops station. She had been made a provisional officer at her own request, so that she could apply her considerable engineering talent on the most advanced starships. Matsuo preferred space, that was obvious.

But she really needed to learn to curb that temper of hers. Koroshiya shook his head, before turning forward at a loud beeping.

"Sir, it's a MIDAS message," Mizuho dutifully reported. She stiffened in her seat. Koroshiya noted Marik becoming more rigid than usual nearby, so it seems likely that whatever his Vulcan empathy picked up from their pink-haired operations officer, it can't be good.

"It's _Sojourner._ She's at the anomaly."

* * *

"Somehow, I don't think this is where we're supposed to be," Captain Lee observed, glaring at the looming anomaly in the viewscreen, instead of Task Force Pi, which was _supposed_ to be in his viewscreen. He turned around, facing both Wyn and Haro at their stations.

"Why are we in Sector 5336A?"

"Er, I don't know, Captain," Haro replied, frowning at her console. "The slipstream navigational program looks fine…"

"Twee?"

"I concur. The navigational computer says we're where we're supposed to be. But we're not. Doesn't feel anything like where we're supposed to be," the dolphin commander chirped, looking a bit put-off. To a dolphin, navigation is life. If you don't know where you are, things are already in bad shape.

"And there's that thing right there," Lee added, gesturing towards the anomaly, which should not have been there. The captain sighed, and then hit his communicator.

"Captain to Seven." He waited. The former drone did not reply. He tried again.

"Captain to Seven. Seven, this is the captain. Do you read?" There was only silence. Lee frowned then turned to Wyn.

"Get security to find Seven. She may be… I don't know…"

"Malfunctioning?" Offered Noah. Twee squeaked slightly.

"She felt… Odd, when she was here. As though she did not feel at ease. As though something else was taking her attention," the first officer spoke. Lee's frown deepened.

"Uh, Captain? The helm just-" The conn panels went black, soon followed by the ops, tactical, mission ops, environmental, science, and communications stations.

"Computer, initiate emergency measure Lee Alpha 33 Shutterbug!" Lee yelled. The computer trilled in response, and the stations came back online, though they continued to flicker. Lessing looked confused, as the other officers went to work.

"Sir?"

"It's a security measure Wyn devised. It changes the computer's entire programming language and restricts the consoles that can process it to the bridge," explained Lee. He turned to Wyn. "Is Astrometrics still online?"

"Yes. I have dispatched security teams there," the Angosian replied darkly.

"Sir! Bridge controls are being rerouted to Main Engineering!" Haro warned.

"Lockout the consoles with the Shutterbug software processors!" The captain ordered. Haro typed furiously, as Wyn hefted her phaser rifle.

"… Where were you keeping that?" Asked the captain. The rifle came online with a muted cry of life, after which Wyn just stared at Lee. He sighed.

"Nevermind. Get down to Main Engineering. Communications?"

"They're down. Only the manual input is available," explained Haro.

"I don't fancy a spacewalk right now," Lee grumbled. The deck shifted.

"We're heading for the anomaly, Captain!" Warned Twee. "I am attempting to take back control, but the systems are offline!"

"Hell… Switch to manual!" The dolphin smacked his beaky nose against a panel in the console, and an old-fashioned joystick emerged. The dolphin took hold and pulled it to starboard with all his might, but the green-blue rift continued to grow in the viewer.

"I've got the communication badges working again," Haro reported.

"Wyn? What's the situation?"

"_Main Engineering is locked off. The manual override has been disabled. And a scattering field has been raised around the entire compartment, we can't beam in or get scans."_ Wyn reported, over loud shrieks of phaser fire.

"What's with the noise?"

"_We are attempting to blast through the main doors. It's harder than it seems,"_ she explained. Lee gritted his teeth, a feeling of helplessness beginning to emerge in the back of his mind.

"Keep at it."

"_This is Rollins to bridge. Sir? Seven's down in the Astrometrics lab. She's unconscious,"_ announced the voice of one of the security team leaders over the intercom. Lee nodded, knowing that the security man couldn't see him but feeling like he needed to make the body movements anyway.

"Roger that, Rollins. Get her to sickbay. We have shields?"

"Yes. Only things that we can't control are the engines. Since, ya know, whoever or whatever's doing this has taken engineering," Haro noted. Lessing shook his head, muttering something that sounded vaguely like a prayer.

"Okay… Could we fire a torpedo and have it detonate close enough to know us away?" Asked Lee.

"I think it's a little late for that," Haro groaned, as the ship began to shake. "We're going into the anomaly!"

"Damnit," Lessing muttered. "I just finished unpacking too…"

Lee would have responded to that, had _Sojourner_ not decided to turn off the artificial gravity and inertial dampeners, sending him and everyone else tumbling into the viewscreen like bugs on a windshield from the inside. Just before the small ship was swallowed whole, a single voice rang out on the bridge:

"_Get off my face!"

* * *

_

The ship was a wreck; that much was clear. Their sensors had been unable to penetrate a few areas of the hull that were still intact, but the image of the mangled engines, drooping saucer, and crumbling dorsal told the leftenant all he needed to know.

"Life signs?" The lieutenant stretched out a hand to the image floating in mid-air. Pressing one of the translucent figures, the image shifted to one of infrared. The lieutenant narrowed his eyes.

"Estimate that there are approximately one hundred-fifty survivors, out of a crew of perhaps four-hundred," the officer reported. He frowned, looking past the massive dome of the ship to the stars, and to the small, drifting vessel.

"Curious design," the captain spoke aloud. "Almost resembles the _Akagi-_class starships, only the engine pods are situated above the hull, not below."

"Probably not meant for landing," the lieutenant opined. "Built for space, and maybe atmospheric flight, but no other environs."

"Sure went through a lot of hell," the captain pointed out, frowning out over the magnified screen. "These blasts here? Considering the hull material, I don't think _Ral'nai'HAO_ would survive just one of what this thing took."

"Careful that Priest Hul doesn't hear you say that," the leftenant smiled slightly. "He'll think you a heretic."

"He thinks me a heathen already," the captain shrugged with a wry grin. He then frowned, and waved his hand over a section of the hull. "Looks like the bridge… And there's some kind of markings here. Any subspace noise?

"None," the lieutenant sighed. "Looks like her systems are dead. Her transponder is also offline, provided she has one." The leftenant frowned, tracing his fingers lightly over the markings decorating the forward part of the saucer module.

"Kim? Something wrong?"

"These markings… It's a Latin alphabet. Earth." Kim's frown deepened. "Strange. No Earth ship ever made it this far."

"Indeed. You are the first human to ever reach this space. Or so I thought," the captain mused. "Can you read them?"

"Yes. My mother taught me," Kim acknowledged. His hazel eyes narrowed in concentration.

"NCC… 26136… USS… _Zhuko?_ Or something similar."

"USS? Same as the old Federation vessels," the captain raised an eyebrow. Now this was certainly interesting. Nalkoth'I Haru had been an avid starship modeler back on the homeworld as a boy. He'd bought every one he could find, especially those of the Federation. Unlike the warships of his own people, the Federation's ships were a mix of both organic and inorganic construction materials.

"Can't be, sir. They stopped at 2001," Kim indicated. "In addition, this vessel does not match any known Federation starship designs. And, well… It's power plant is… Unusual."

"How so?" Asked Captain Haru. Kim brought forth a holoscreen of a very elaborate, very inorganic engine schematic.

"It's not a ZP organ. All ships from the Federation territories use them. This is some kind of matter/anti-matter reaction system, managed by **some kind of crystalline **control rods. We are detecting a significant amount of hafnium 6, carbonitrium, tritanium, and a number of other alloys and composites we cannot identify."

"The warp coils?" Asked Haru. Kim switched to another view.

"Artificial verterium cortenide. Federation starships used solenoid organs to produce it naturally, where it was continuously replaced everytime the ship went to warp."

"Like our bone marrow, replacing dead blood cells," surmised Haru. Kim nodded.

"Aye sir. This verterium cortenide is a lot denser, and much more resilient than the Federation version. Whatever this ship is, it's not from the Federation."

"And yet, if it is a forgery, it is a very poor one. Not to mention a very bizarre and obvious one," Haru thought aloud. He frowned, studying the ship like he would any puzzle.

"Leftenant, take a boarding party over. Find out what you can, and collect the survivors. I'll have the hospital made ready."

"Aye sir."

* * *

_To be continued…_


	6. Chapter 6

_**Star Trek: Babylon**_

_Andrew J. Talon

* * *

_

"Our own Astrometrics confirms the MIDAS report," Lieutenant Kim reported, his hands tightly clasped behind his back in front of the Astrometrics lab's primary control console. Above him, on the raised platform below _Voyager's_ main astrometrics screen, Commodore Koroshiya and Admiral Janeway stood, observing the sensor-enhanced image of the _Sojourner's_ final moments before entering the anomaly.

"Navigational error, perhaps?" Asked Tal Ceres, the operations manager. Nervously, she looked up at the two flag officers next to Kim.

"Doubtful… They dropped out of slipstream and kept on going on impulse right into it," Koroshiya stated. Janeway nodded, and pointed to a speck of light coming from the side of _Sojourner's _hull.

"Look here though. Their RCS thrusters were firing wildly, while their impulse engines were at full burn. More than likely, they were hijacked."

"By whom, is the big question," Captain Chakotay, his arms crossed as he scrutinized the main screen darkly. He turned to Harry at his console. "Borg?"

"How? When?" Janeway asked. "All communications to the three slipstream vessels were conducted personally. By me. No one else could know."

"Borg sleeper agent?" Suggested Koroshiya. Immediately he felt the glares of everyone else in the room.

"Someone had to say it, Admiral," he continued flatly, meeting Janeway's icy gaze with one of his own. "Miss Hansen reported that the Borg Queen made contact with her before you came back home."

"The Borg Queen was too arrogant for such thinking. The Borg don't care about stealth, or subterfuge, or backup plans. They never thought they needed them," Janeway snorted. Koroshiya did not avert his gaze.

"… We will, of course, consider every option," Chakotay interjected, hoping to keep the two flag officers from tearing into eachother. Their arguments at the academy had been infamous. "_Every_ option, Kathryn." He put a hand on her shoulder. She stiffened, before relaxing at his comforting touch. She nodded.

"Right now, I think our priority should be to get to that anomaly. Sooner we're there, the sooner we can start to figure this out. Commodore?" Koroshiya nodded stiffly.

"I've got it." The commodore turned, and headed out, the doors to the Astrometrics lab sliding shut with a hiss behind him. Kim frowned, and looked at his captain quizzically. Former captain, he corrected himself.

"Admiral?"

"TellVorik to get ready for slipstream. Miss Celes, alert the fleet."

"Aye sir," both officers reported, before turning and heading out as well. Janeway sighed. Just Chakotay and her. Just as it had been. Before…

_No. You got over that a long time ago._

_A _month _ago. Hardly a long time. And since he broke up with Seven…_

"Kathryn?" The admiral broke out of her ruminations, offering a small, self-deprecating smile at her former first officer.

"Sorry… It's been a while. Since it was just the two of us, I mean." Chakotay nodded, his face thoughtful. He still hadn't moved his hand.

"Yes. It has been." Janeway didn't move. She waited. Chakotay still hadn't moved his hand. She coughed.

"Chakotay?"

"Yes Kathryn?"

"Your hand?" Chakotay's eyes went to his grip on the admiral's shoulder, and released it, gently, reluctantly.

"Sorry." Janeway sighed, shaking her head, before offering her former XO a sad smile. He smiled sadly back in return. But neither moved.

_This is ridiculous,_ Janeway thought irritably, as she stepped to the right. Chakotay, however, had followed the movement exactly. Both stared at eachother. Chakotay moved to the left just as Kathryn tried it as well. They blinked at eachother… before they both started to laugh, shattering the tension.

"Admiral, I--" Kim had come in, to see the admiral and captain laughing hysterically, leaning against each other for support on the Astrometrics platform. The lieutenant blinked awkwardly, before slowly stepping out, and walking back down the corridor. He had the haunted expression of someone who has just seen their parents playing a kinky sex game.

_Don't want to know._ Really _don't want to know…

* * *

_

The doors to Main Engineering exploded inward, shattering into flaming debris. Through this litter of destruction stalked Lieutenant Wyn, a wicked-looking weapon held out before her. This was no mere phaser rifle—an isokinetic mini-cannon was the ultimate in blowing up those things that simply refused to blow up. Wyn wielded it about, carefully looking through the darkness of Main Engineering. Only the warp core provided illumination. Wyn raised her hand, and pointed twice to her left. Two of her fellow security officers darted into the darkness, phaser rifles ready. She double-pointed to the right, and the other officers with her went as well. She herself continued forward, the rest of her security team following her.

As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, they widened in shock. She rushed forward, weapon still up, and knelt down next to the prostrate form of the ship's doctor.

"Dr. Kes? Kes? Can you hear me?" The doctor did not answer, her long blonde hair rustled only by the breeze of the engineering section's environmental systems. She looked up at the console above the unconscious doctor, and began to feel sick.

"Take the doctor to the brig. Activate the EMH in sickbay," she said flatly to two of her guards. They obeyed without question, thought she saw the confusion in their eyes. They carefully picked the doctor up with one of the emergency stretchers stashed in a nearby bulkhead compartment, and carried her out of Main Engineering. Wyn's frown deepened as she looked the console over. The Shutterbug-enabled processor in this console had been locked out to all but Dr. Kes. And the controls to the propulsion system were clearly online...

* * *

"Gah… Status?" Haro clumsily pulled herself to the conn console, and tapped in a few commands. The Bolian's cheek had a gash that bled bright blue, but she ignored it in favor of the captain's pained request.

"Inertial dampeners are at 50 percent. Good for us, otherwise we'd be paint." Haro grimaced, typing through a few more readings, as the dog pile of bridge crew slowly got up from their collected state underneath the viewscreen. The captain was at the bottom of the pile, and looked the worse out of all the other crewmembers. But, he still managed to get to his feet, shakily at best. Twee, having his anti-grav harness on, had been able to stay air-borne and away from the crunch, but the violent passage of the _Sojourner_ had rendered him quite dizzy.

"Ew… Twee!" Griped Lieutenant Saffron, wincing at the partially-digested fish sitting in her lap. "Commander!"

"Sorry," Twee murmured softly, clicking as he floated drunkenly above the deck. Lee had managed to pull himself over the conn station, and started running systems diagnostics himself.

"Mitena, can you get a navigational fix?"

"Our primary sensor arrays are down… I'm switching to auxiliary now," she reported. The viewscreen, dead before, now crackled to life, static filling it's silver frame.

"Oh, _much_ better," Saffron grunted. Lee managed enough energy to smack her in the back of her head.

"OW! _Que'DAH'kuroch!"_

"Language, Ensign," Lee reprimanded her with a wheeze. He winced as he moved and agitated an injury, before resuming tapping out commands into the console. His eyes narrowed.

"Shutterbug's running. Someone used it to take direct control of the engines and lock the rest of us out." His eyes then widened, and he froze. A minute ticked by, before Haro poked him in the shoulder.

"_Ow!"_

"Sorry sir, I thought you might have, I dunno, gone into some kind of hibernation. Who can tell with humans?" Haro shrugged. Lee sighed. The Bolian looked at the data on his console and blinked.

"_WHAAT!"_

"My thoughts exactly," Lee noted dryly. He tapped in a few last adjustments, hopefully getting the sensors back online…

"… _Ree!"_ Twee squeaked in his native language, combined with a rather intricate tail movement. Lee didn't remember exactly what that expression meant (something about erectile dysfunction, jellyfish, and whales), but he didn't bother to strain his brain on recalling cetacean curses.

"… Since when was Earth's oceans _red?"_ Saffron, a native of the border colony Setlik 3, asked. Lee grunted.

"Since when _were_ Earth's oceans red, Ensign. _Were._ Speak the goddamned language correctly," Lee muttered, unable to put the bite into that remark it deserved.

Filling their viewscreen was the continent of North America, on Earth, located in Sector 001 (it was the capital world of the Federation, after all—why shouldn't it be number one? The big question was why the Borg called it that too). It orbited a main-sequence, yellow star called Sol, and was the birthplace of mankind.

And right now, it looked rather like a photo-negative.

The once yellow, green, and gray continent was a uniform black, with wide inner seas and rivers as red as the seas surrounding the shores. The icecaps were melted; all land seemingly scorched into lifeless oblivion, with the seas as blood pouring from numerous gashes in the dead world. The clouds that ran here and there were stone grey, flashing and crackling with lightening, but shedding no rain.

"Sir… The oceans are 60 percent iron oxide." Lee turned awkwardly, to Ensign Lessing, sitting at his science station with haunted eyes. "Atmosphere is a combination of methane, carbon monoxide, and pockets of fluorine. Geological processes have stopped. The core's dead. All of the land masses have been leveled, by some kind of-"

"Stop. Just stop." Lee sighed. "Lifesigns?"

"None, sir," Lessing whispered, thought everyone heard it. Haro hit a few keys on her nav station next to the conn, and swallowed audibly.

"I'm picking up a transponder… It's sending an automated message, sir."

"What does it say?" Lee murmured. Haro worked her jaw.

"'Thus lies the tomb of infidels, the fate all whom challenge the Lightgiver, our mistress Tu'Rai. So speaks… the Raii Empire.'"

* * *

_To be continued…_


	7. Chapter 7

_**Star Trek: Babylon**_

_Andrew J. Talon_

_Edited and revised chapter 7

* * *

_

Kes felt as though she were drowning. Deeper and deeper into an airless void she fell, her arms flailing, attempting to grab onto something, _anything,_ to slow her descent.

There was nothing to grip, nothing to breathe. All was darkness and nothingness. She tried to scream, but no words came. She tried to think, to recall memories, faces, names, but a blanket of darkness covered her mind and rumbled over her thought processes. Without she was surrounded by nothingness, but within she was trapped in a spider's web of unrelenting order. Like the moth caught in such a web she beat her wings frantically, trying to escape, but the threads continued to close in, dividing and splintering her will. Her ability to link thoughts and desires suspended, she could only peer through each barrier to the next, still trying to keep a hold on her identity, and her sanity.

But the will of her captor was all too familiar, and all too powerful, for her to combat. Still she struggled, but without her Ocampan abilities, even her strong will could not keep her mind above the relentless labyrinth. Dimly, she felt herself slipping away, falling apart into nonexistence…

Until abruptly, she opened her eyes. Her senses returned, as though they had never been suspended. She squinted and made out the sight of the medical sensor cluster overhead, with the all-too-familiar support of the surgical bio bed underneath her body. Swimming into view above her face was the craggy visage of—

"D… Doctor?" Kes murmured, blinked slowly. The EMH smiled down at her in a familiar fashion. A light of recognition burst in her eyes.

"Hello, Kes," the holographic doctor said kindly. "Good to see you well." She blinked again, tilting her head slightly to her right. Her eyes widened somewhat, a sudden exhaustion coming upon her.

"Captain…?" Captain Janeway smiled caringly down at her.

"Hello Kes." The blonde blinked lazily again.

"What… Is going on?" She murmured. Janeway sighed.

"I _told_ the Doctor that continuing his temporal experiments would only lead to more trouble," the captain growled, as the doctor blanched. The EMH shook his head rapidly.

"It wasn't a _temporal_ experiment, Captain. The biotemporal chamber was used for a much more ambitious—And I must admit, _brilliant—_purpose."

"Which would be?" Janeway prompted irritably. The Doctor shrugged, his eyes dipping down at Kes expressively.

"To turn her human, of course." Janeway's jaw dropped. Kes felt like fainting in shock.

"What… Where am I? What year is this?"

"She's very disoriented at the moment. It's a side-effect of the treatment," the Doctor went on. "Essentially, I came up with a way of fostering a trans-species metamorphosis. I used the base nucleotide sequences common to both Ocampan and human DNA, to serve as a foundation. Then, by using advanced gene therapy techniques, I began altering Kes' DNA to become more like a human's, in order to grant her a much longer lifespan." Janeway looked positively furious, but hid the growing firestorm behind her eyes. Kes felt a confusing maelstrom of emotion—Shock, violation, betrayal, anger, sorrow…

"And the temporal chamber?" The Doctor smiled happily.

"_That_ was a particularly brilliant idea of mine. This trans-species metamorphosis would only have been possible through the carefully paced introduction of the new DNA, and the affected areas of her body adapting quickly to the changes. If I were to speed up the process in some areas, but slow them down in others, I would be able to greatly reduce the amount of time overall to complete the transformation." Kes felt close to fainting again. Janeway looked ready to erupt, and Mount Kathryn was _not_ a calm volcano to ignite.

"Did you _ask_ Kes about this _procedure?"_

"No. That would have ruined the surprise!" The Doctor replied cheerfully. Far too cheerfully. There was something terribly, terribly wrong here. Both were in their uniforms from _Voyager's_ trek through the Delta Quadrant. And only now was she finally noticing the length of her hair…

"Computer, deactivate EMH program until further notice," the captain said flatly. The Doctor vanished, still wearing his odd smile. Janeway hit her commbadge and called B'Elanna and Tom to the sickbay, before she turned to Kes again, looking frustrated and confused.

"Don't worry, Kes. We're going to figure out just what's wrong with the Doctor… And what he really did to you," the captain murmured, placing a comforting hand on Kes' shoulder. Kes' brain decided that now was a good time to go bye bye and sleep on this mess. The last thing she heard was the captain calling her name urgently, trying to wake her…

* * *

"Captain! Hold still!" The Emergency Medical Hologram Mk. II grumbled, waving a dermal regenerator over Lee's exposed stomach. The captain rolled his eyes and willed himself to remain motionless, but the fact that the medical device was making his stomach very sensitive was making things difficult.

"Shouldn't you be tending to someone else?" The captain grunted. The holographic doctor rolled his blue eyes, shaking the golden mops of hair on his head.

"You _insisted_ that I treat everyone _before_ you, captain. At the moment, the other patients are recovering." The EMH continued it's treatment, muttering under it's breath about captains and common sense. Lee grit his teeth, but was finally rewarded with freedom from the treatment a few moments later. He spared no time, grabbing his red command undershirt and pulling it on, while striding rapidly over to the zero-gravity stasis chamber. Within which, the battered form of Commander Twee floated awkwardly. The medic attending the chamber's controls, Nurse Steth, ran her blue fingers over the control board with a practiced ease. She turned at the captain's approach, her antenna twitching slightly.

"Captain."

"Nurse," he nodded, looking solemnly at the silent dolphin. His eyes were closed, and his posture was limp, screaming that something was wrong with their usually exuberant, active first officer. The nurse tentatively put a hand on Lee's elbow.

"He sustained severe internal injuries, captain, but the surgery went well. He'll make a full recovery in a week. He's very resilient," Steth voiced quietly. Lee nodded.

"He is," the captain murmured. He nodded to the nurse, and turned to the biobed in the corner. The prone form of their usual CMO, blonde hair arranged like a halo around her head, slept almost peacefully. Two grim-faced security guards, Zero and Naggins, watched over her, phaser rifles always trained on Kes. Lee frowned. It was procedure, yes, but still…

"Doctor. What's Kes's status?" He asked simply of the hologram. The blond EMH turned around, glanced over at the CMO, and became stone-faced. He approached the captain, and gestured to Kes's office.

"In private, sir?" The EMH asked. Lee nodded, and followed the hologram into the glass-enclosed workplace, shielded from prying ears of any species. Lee crossed his arms and looked at the EMH expectantly.

"Her nervous system has been… Hijacked, for lack of a better term," the hologram began. Lee raised an eyebrow, and the EMH continued.

"Her occipital pole—The part of the brain in the back, responsible for processing visual and other sensory stimuli—is right now running at very high energy levels. Her cerebellum's processes are no longer linked with the rest of her brain—At least, along the normally accepted neural pathways." The EMH called up a holoscreen that floated in mid-air, outlining a sensor-schematic of Kes' brain. Lee gaped openly at the bizarre, criss-crossing pattern of neuro-electric connections firing in rapid, almost chaotic, succession.

"Her consciousness is being linked into an external source of some kind," the EMH went on. "While her occipital nerves are occupied in keeping her in a dreamlike state, the rest of her brain is receiving outside instruction. In essence, her brain has been transformed into a subspace transceiver…"

"Like the Borg," whispered Lee, suddenly feeling sick in dread. He slapped his commbadge. "Lee to bridge! Scan for Borg vessels or transmissions! And then get us hidden and fast!"

"_Captain, we're a bit preoccupied now,"_ Wyn reported over the channel. Lee frowned, before the deck shuddered beneath them all. Lee groaned.

"Wait, wait—Let me guess. We're under attack, right?"

"_No sir. The Delta Flyer has blasted its way out of our shuttlebay,"_ Wyn said flatly. "_And Seven of Nine is no longer in the science lab, working on a way back home."_

"Pursuit course! Shields up!" Lee barked, turning and running from the sickbay. At the whine of a transporter beam he skidded to a stop and kicked himself back into the sickbay, only to watch Kes' form vanish from the biobed.

"_DAMNIT!"

* * *

_

Seven smiled cheerfully, piloting the knock-off of the _Delta Flyer_ away at Warp 6. With her meddling, the warp engines wouldn't be operational for hours, at best. She set the controls to autopilot, before standing and turning around. The statuesque former-Borg strode to the aft bay of the large, sleek, Borg-enhanced shuttle, and descended down the ladder to the biobed now extended from the bulkhead.

Lying peacefully on this biobed was Kes, still in her blue patient garb. She ran a few scans with her cortical implant, before switching to a medical tricorder. Her smile stayed the same, as she gently ran her fingers through Kes' long hair.

"Don't worry…" she murmured quietly.Seven had never met this woman,until back in the Alpha Quadrant, and yet, she felt a deep connection to her already. Taking a hypospray, she injected the sleeping woman with something, before tucking her in with a blanket. She turned and walked smartly over to a nearby console, and began inputting commands—

"What?" She murmured, feeling the deck rattle beneath her. She remotely accessed the shuttle's controls and frowned. The _Sojourner,_ instead of being disabled, was in hot pursuit.

"Efficient," she noted coolly, "but futile."

* * *

Lieutenant Kim tripled-checked his _xao_ staff, it's green projection crystal glowing as it should. He turned to the troop of Imperial Marines waiting behind him in the debarkation chamber.

"Allright. We are looking for survivors, and checking their computers for relevant data. If _any_ man here makes _any_ inappropriate action towards the crew of the ship, I will nail your _balls_ to the main reactor and let you _jump_ at them," the leftenant snarled, his steely gaze running over a few of the more slovenly Warriors of His Majesty's Domain. The officer then turned, confident that his men were silent in focus towards their duties.

"What about looting, sir?" Asked one of the Marines. Kim rolled his eyes.

"_Fine._ We'll allow that. Kim to forecastle? Launch."

"_Confirmed."_ At once, Kim and his men were surrounded in a pink bubble, which gently and silently launched out into space. Kim, along with the other men, held their staves tightly in front of them, the internal powercells of the multi-purpose tools maintaining the transport bubble. The _Zhukov_ loomed closer, as Kim guided the transport towards the center of the saucer section. Growing larger and larger, finally the _Zhukov's _hull parted before them, as the bubble phased through the layers of duranium, tritanium, and other advanced alloys and composites. Kim shifted the bubble sideways, and released it, leaving the leftenant and his eight Marines standing on a dark, smoldering bridge. Kim knelt to check the pulse of a body on the carpeted floor, and upon finding one, slapped a pink pin onto his back.

A pink mini-transport bubble formed, and ascended, taking the unconscious crewmember up through the bulkhead, towards the _Ral'nai'HAO_, with its hospital section already prepped to receive the injured. More and more unconscious survivors ascended back to the Raii Imperial cruiser, as Leftenant Kim began to tap into one of the few intact control consoles on the bridge. He frowned, before holding his staff up to the console. His frown deepened.

"Curious. I can't decrypt their computer database. It's not in a binary code…" A fellow Marine, Private Naoh, came to his side.

"Leftenant? There is a dedication plaque…" He held up the artifact, which the leftenant scrutinized in the dim light of the _Zhukov's_ emergency lighting.

"_Ambassador-_class starship… USS _Zhukov…_ Commissioned Stardate 00000.5, Utopia Planitia Yards, 2323…" Kim frowned.

"The Federation stardate system," Naoh whispered. "Only in this case, it seems to have 1,000 time units for a year of slightly over 365.245 Earth days." Kim nodded.

"According to my history, originally, the Federation stardate system reset to 0000.0 every five and a half Terran years. But it looks as though this ship has been using a revised time system—One that resets to zero every 400 years instead. Accordingly, their current stardate would be… 58600.3. The Gregorian year 2381."

"But all former Federation worlds now use the Imperial Standard Lunar Calendar," Naoh protested. "This should be year Unjaii 79! This system must be a fraud or fabrication of some kind." Kim's eyes narrowed.

"We won't know what this ship really is, until we decrypt this database. Call the technicians over. We have work to do."

* * *

_To be continued…_


	8. Chapter 8

_**Star Trek: Babylon**_

_Andrew J. Talon

* * *

_

Commodore Koroshiya's onyx eyes narrowed at the progress of the probe. The small unmanned vehicle crept stealthily in normal space, towards the anomaly swirling menacingly in the distance. Silhouetted against the glowing emerald phenomenon, three vessels—one cube-shaped, the other two spheres—sat unmoving. The probe was only a few million kilometers away.

"Probe status?"

"No reaction from the Borg vessels," Lieutenant Mizuho reported from Ops. Koroshiya turned to Adam Osborne, at tactical, who also shook his head in a negative response.

"Looks like they're too focused on what they're doing right now to notice," the security chief noted. The commodore frowned.

"What are they doing, exactly?" Captain Marik frowned at the readings the ship's science sections were sending to his console.

"They are generating powerful transwarp fields, tuned to the subspace modulation and frequency of the anomaly," the Vulcan stated smoothly. "They have increased both the size and strength of the anomaly by four-hundred percent since the last MIDAS scan." The commodore's frown deepened.

"Well, we need to put a stop to it. Whatever it is they're planning, I doubt we want to see it come to fruition. Bridge to Engineering."

"_Engineering here, sir,"_ Chief Koishi's feathery voice responded.

"Chief, stand by to execute."

"_Aye sir. Standing by."_ Koroshiya watched the sensor image from the probe's link for a heartbeat more, until nodding to Osborne. The human tactical officer nodded back grimly, before inputting the commands.

"The probe is now broadcasting the signature of several slipstream events," Mizuho spoke. Onscreen, the probe's cameras showed the three Borg vessels begin to grow in size, as they moved away from the anomaly.

"The probe is now broadcasting the warp signatures of a Federation battlegroup," Mizuho went on. "The Borg ships are arming weapons, and closing the range at full impulse."

"Engineering, stand by."

"_Aye."_ The Borg vessels continued to grow in the cameras of the probe, their menacing black bulks looming with sinister green highlights. The cube flew behind the two smaller spheres, suddenly resembling a gigantic playing die.

"Borg ships are closing. Four hundred thousand kilometers," warned Osborne.

"Not yet," Koroshiya vetoed.

"Three hundred thousand… Two-hundred fifty thousand… One hundred ninety thousand…" Rattled off Osborne, his tone urgent.

"Kusanagi, do we have accurate enough navigational data to execute?" Koroshiya asked. The ensign nodded, looking paler than usual. Koroshiya nodded.

"Allright. Engineering, hit it!"

"_Aye sir!"_

"Osborne, confirm locks and prepare to fire once we come out."

"Aye sir!"

A few seconds later, the Borg cube had one whole face of its massive hull explode outward in a green flash, as the slipstream portal tore through its structure with ease. A spilt second later, the _Archangel_ rammed its way through the rest of the cube, emerging with her powerful shields burning against her hull, as the mighty starship blew yet another hole in the Borg cube. Her phaser arrays and torpedo launchers went into action then, four quantum torpedoes a piece annihilating the two spheres, and a sustained phaser and photon-torpedo barrage pounding the already floundering cube behind the _Archangel._ The Borg cube met its end in a critical blow to its transwarp engines, which, still retaining an energy charge from its previous use, exploded with terrible force, reducing the once fearsome behemoth to a burning, radioactive debris field.

Koroshiya, after settling himself back in his chair calmly, cleared his throat and yelled over the red alert klaxons, "Report!"

"Permission to throw up, sir?" Kusanagi moaned from somewhere beneath the helm. Mizuho, only looking mildly rattled, tapped out the commands onto her console.

"Shields at seventy percent. The deflector dish has suffered a minor overload from the sheer amount of mass we had to blast out of our way. No casualties reported, and no hull damage. However, the structural integrity field is down to fifty percent from the feedback." Koroshiya nodded, grimacing as Kusanagi went ahead with his request without permission.

"Ensign!"

"Sorry sir… I was just so… terrified…" Kusanagi shivered, before his face turned green and he resumed retching his guts out onto the deck. Marik wrinkled his nose, while a medic tended to Kusanagi with a washcloth and a soothing tone.

"Status of the enemy?" Koroshiya pressed.

"All three Borg ships have been destroyed," Osborne laughed, a feral grin on his face. "Now _that_ is something to write home about! Or to write a song about. Too bad we don't have any Klingons onboard…"

"Indeed. Using the navigational deflector, in concert with the shields, to ram through an enemy ship already badly damaged from the eruption of an artificial wormhole within its hull… Was a very ingenious, if 'unique', tactic," Marik observed. Hatsuo grinned impishly at engineering.

"And _I_ came up with it," the purple-haired vixen boasted. "So, do I get a medal or something for this?"

"Excuse me? I came up with the plan, though I admit you inspired me," the commodore grinned. Hatsuo glared.

"_What!_ I did not—How?"

"You screamed at that petty officer to get out of your way, before you just shoved him," Koroshiya observed mildly. Hatsuo flushed an angry red, before turning to her console and kicking it, a number of Onegian curses leaving her mouth quietly.

"Sir, _Voyager_, _Eagle,_ and _Miyazaki_ have all left slipstream. The admiral is hailing us," Mizuho piped up. Koroshiya nodded, wincing at the continuing red alert klaxon.

"Shut that thing off, please, and put the admiral onscreen," the commodore ordered. As soon as the high-pitched alert shut off, the incredulous face of Admiral Janeway appeared on the viewscreen.

"_Commodore Koroshiya… Please allow me to first say, that had you told me _why_, exactly, you wanted the _Archangel_ outfitted with a slipstream drive before we came here, I assure you, I would have said _no." The commodore smirked smugly.

"Oh, come now, admiral: It got the job done, right?"

"_Yes, but it was foolhardy and suicidal."_ Koroshiya shrugged.

"Ramming maneuvers are perfectly allowed in combat situations, according to the regs."

"_But not like--! … Nevermind," _the admiral sighed, shaking her head in exasperation. She looked critically at the still-smirking commodore.

"_Just remember that if you pull a stunt like that again, I'll court martial you. Or I'll promote you. Either way, you'll be in a _HEAP_ of trouble, mister."_

"Yes ma'am," Koroshiya replied, enjoying how annoyed the admiral was. She blew out a breath, before rearranging herself in her seat.

"_Now then. _Voyager, Archangel, _and_ Eagle _will proceed through the anomaly. The _Miyazaki _will continue to ferry ships to and from the area with her slipstream drive, since we don't have time to outfit them all with their own drives. That said: Captain Stingray, Captain Powers, Commodore Koroshiya? Let's not waste any more time."_

"Yes ma'am," Koroshiya repeated, as Powers and Stingray stated the same over the shared channel. _Voyager_ turned and headed for the anomaly, with the _Nebula-_class _Eagle_ closely following. Koroshiya (noting that Kusanagi was still lying on the deck in his own puke) nodded to Marik, who took the station and inputted the commands.

"Course laid in, sir."

"Engage, Captain. Mr. Kusanagi! Go rest in your quarters for a while, and rest." The ensign nodded gratefully, as the medic slowly escorted him off the bridge and into the turbolift. The commodore wrinkled his nose.

"And someone, please, clean up that mess…"

* * *

"The good news, Captain, is that you were right to initiate a total systems reboot before we took off after Seven," Lieutenant Marla Gilmore explained to Captain Lee, as the two stood over the main control console in Main Engineering. Lee nodded thoughtfully, looking over the readouts.

"This line of booby-trapped subroutines, here, would have burnt out our warp coils," Gilmore explained, running a finger down the specified lines of code. "This other one would have ejected the warp core and dumped our antimatter pods too."

"What would this one have done?" Lee asked, pointing to a rather peculiar algorithm. Gilmore rolled her eyes.

"Turned all the replicators on at full power, and flood the ship with mashed leola root." The captain stared at his chief engineer. She stared back.

"… _Why?"_

"I havent' a clue, sir. Perhaps Seven's actions indicate that she's, well…"

"Crazier than a Vulcan during _pon farr?_ Or possibly, higher than a kite?"

"Those… Are probably distinct possibilities, yes sir," Gilmore coughed. Lee sighed, before his combadge chirped.

"Captain here."

"_Sir, the Delta Flyer's shields are holding. Our phasers aren't having any effect and our photon torpedoes just bounce off,"_ Wyn reported in her usual monotone.

"Damn!" Lee cursed. "Keep after her, Wyn. Any idea where she's headed?"

"_Looks like she's set a course for Khitomer. We've been monitoring the subspace channels for any indication about this Raii Empire's status, but so far, there's been nothing. It's like the subspace network isn't there."_

"Or was never built," Lee mused. At Gilmore's confused look, Lee cleared his throat.

"The subspace network as we know it didn't come into existence until 2345. Since this is an alternate universe, where the Federation seems to have been conquered by this Raii Empire…" He trailed off. Gilmore nodded, growling deep in her throat.

"Great. These _Intrepid-_class starships seem to be cursed. _Voyager_ got sent to the far side of the galaxy, the _Intrepid_ had to fight off some space creature with _sexual_ energy, the _Bellerephon _was captured by the Romulans, and now the _Sojourner_ is sent to another bloody universe! " Lee gave her a lopsided grin that didn't reach his eyes.

"I dunno… This might be interesting, in a twisted sort of way." The chief engineer rolled her eyes.

"Captain… Go save your girlfriend," Gilmore said flatly. Lee blinked, and then scowled. Gilmore smiled cheekily.

"Expect your demotion to cadet tomorrow morning."

"Aye sir. But still…"

"She's not my girlfriend," Lee growled, turning and heading out, the anger he'd been restraining for the last hour finally releasing into his fast, furious gait. Gilmore nodded in approval: It showed that he cared.

"Gilmore to bridge: What's the speed of the Flyer?"

"_Warp 9.8, and it looks as though it's not taxing its engines at all. How long can we keep up with them?"_

"About 48 hours… But I think I can extend that by a considerable margin. I'd like to talk to the captain about it when he gets there." Gilmore's smile returned. "Oh yes... I won the bet on the captain's reaction to The Question."

"_The first question or another on the list Haro made?"_

"The first." Marla heard the faint cursing of a young, female Bolian who had just lost one hundred credits, and grinned.

"_Understood. Wyn out,"_ the Angosian replied, who, despite her monotone, seemed almost amused.

* * *

_To be continued…_


	9. Chapter 9

_**Star Trek: Babylon**_

_Andrew J. Talon

* * *

_

The explosion of the holographic screen caused the people within the trading post to scream and panic. A second blast from the same phaser that had destroyed the communications/advertising set up, this time into the roof, silenced that burst of noise and fear.

"Now then, every on the ground, with your hands behind your head!" Ordered the tall, bald and dark-skinned man in the center of a trio of long-coat wearing, armed intruders. At the man's right, long dark hair pulled back into a ponytail and pale, spotted hands holding out a small phaser rifle, a Trill woman motioned a few slower people down to the floor with a sardonic smile. At the man's left, a pale-faced man with golden, bird like eyes walked up to the quartermaster, holding out a bag in one hand, and a phaser in the other.

"Now then, nobody do anything stupid," the man continued in his deep, commanding voice, as he stepped forward, his oversized phaser rifle sweeping the room behind his careful gaze. The Trill woman stepped over a few whimpering people, before pausing and then turning back.

"Well, c'mon!" A lithe, elven girl, wide blue eyes partially obscured by long, curly blonde hair, stepped timidly into the trading station in bare feet, stepping lightly over the cold floor. The Trill woman nodded approvingly, before turning back to the tall black man.

"Two minutes," he said flatly, turning back to the grizzled-looking quartermaster, who was even paler than his wispy hair.

"You-You don't need to go taking our credits! There are plenty of other-!"

"_bIjatlh 'e' yImev__ na __lojmIt yIpoSmoH!__!" _Snarled the woman in particularly guttural Klingon. The clerk blinked quizzically.

"Huh?"

"Shut up and open the vault!" The dark-skinned man barked the translation, to which the clerk scrambled to do. The dark-skinned man raised an eyebrow at the Trill woman, who shrugged sheepishly.

"Er, sorry."

"Try to remember which planet we're on, Dax," he noted dryly. The woman smirked.

"I'll try, sir." She felt a tug on her coat sleeve, and cocked her head to look at the little blonde girl they'd brought with them. She pointed to a man on the floor, who looked as though he were going for a weapon. Dax placed the muzzle of her phaser rifle at the man's head, who froze.

"Losing your head at a time like this would simply not do," she tutted, as he cursed under his breath and dropped the small hand weapon. The Trill nodded, and smiled at the blonde girl.

"Good. You might live yet." Dax turned back towards the vault, where the dark-skinned man and pale-man were working at the access panel.

"Sir?"

"I believe I can isolate-" The pale man began, before the vault clicked and slowly slid open. The pale-man blinked quizzically. "Shall I continue the explanation?"

"No, that's allright, Data. Just remember how you did it for the next time," the dark-skinned man joked, to which Data tilted his head quizzically.

"Captain?"

"Allright, load up the bag. We only need… About this much," the captain stated, pulling up and dumping an armload of gold-pressed latinum slips into the bag, before scooping up another pile and sliding it into the bag as well. Data blinked curiously.

"Sir? Did you not-?"

"No harm in getting a little extra, correct?" The captain surmised, shoving a fourth load into the bag before slapping his hands together. "Well then! Let's be off, shall we?"

"Right. You've been a great audience, thank you so very much," the Trill woman bowed graciously, as the blonde girl curtsied nervously next to her. The blonde girl then went rigid, and began to convulse violently. Dax reached out and caught her before she fell to the floor, and looked up at the captain worriedly.

"Ben, Kes only went like this when-"

"I know." The captain grabbed the clerk and shoved him towards the still-open vault. "All of you, listen up! Get into that vault!" He turned to the clerk. "Can this vault be opened and closed from the inside?"

"Er, yes," the clerk mumbled, before the captain shoved him in. He turned to the rest of the people and yelled, "GET IN NOW! Don't come out until you run out of air, got it!"

As one, the people scrambled up and rushed for the vault, Ben and Data herding them into the container until the last one made it, before slamming it shut. They turned and headed for the door, only to be blocked by a pale, black-armored figure.

"Resistance is—" The creature began, before a shot from Dax's phaser rifle cut it off, sending it crashing face-first into the floor. The quartet ran over the downed thing, rushing over to the anti-grav car that had brought them to the small colony. The sun overhead was blocked out by the rumbling, ramshackle Borg ship, resembling a badly-put together jig-saw puzzle of a dozen other ships all ripped apart and jammed back together. Drones were dropping via long cables, that hook into their backs and kept them connected to the ship, as they ran through the town, energy weapons going off everywhere, screams and shouts. A woman burst into the street, two drones after her. She ran towards the hovercar, waving her arms.

"Please! Take me too! Plea-!" One of the drones pounced on her, digging an extraction tool into her spine, making her scream in agony. Ben punched the accelerator and gunned the engine of the hovercar, which zipped away at high speed. Darting into an alley, Ben narrowed his eyes as a pair of drones dropped from above, trying to land on top of the vehicle. The captain hit the brakes, the hovercar jolting to a stop, before he slammed it into reverse, leaving the two drones to crash into the dirt.

"_Ai ya! _Ben!" Dax screeched. Data tilted his head.

"May I advise against such abrupt maneuvers?"

"Don't tell me, tell them," Ben snorted, twisting about the car once out of the alley, and gunning for the outskirts. Data turned his head, and in his usual emotionless tone noted, "We are being followed."

A millisecond the hovercar jolted, as Dax cried out in shock. Ben turned on the overdrive, and darted into another alley, the Borg pursuit skimmer smashing through a few of the boxy, cheaply-constructed buildings that made up the colony, not being as nimble. Ben cursed under his breath as the Borg skimmer forced its way through the alley, smashing apart the buildings in its mad rush after the hovercar.

"Tom… Tom?" Dax shouted into her flip-open communicator. Static buzzed over the channel.

"They're jamming the area!" The Trill groaned. Ben nodded, before turning and accelerating towards a two-story building. He turned to Data.

"Data? Mind giving us a tunnel?" The android leapt from the backseat, landing nimbly on the nose of the vehicle, before raising a fist. He punched the wall of the house an instant before the hover vehicle itself rammed it, blasting open a hole. The next wall within the house got the same treatment, as did the third, fourth, and fifth, finally breaking out into the open desert outside of town. Dax flipped her phaser rifle around and fired at full blast at the center of the house. The resulting energy release into the manufactured materials caused them to combust into plasma, causing an even larger energy release into the structure of the already damaged house and the Borg skimmer doggedly pursuing them. The end result, as most physicists could inform you, was a massive explosion that smothered the Borg pursuit vehicle in flames and debris, and sent the little hover car spinning from the air displacement caused by the detonation.

"WAAAAAHHHHH!" Shrieked Dax loudly, as Kes smiled and cheered silently. Ben wrestled with the controls, until finally leveling out the hovercraft, still screaming for their ship parked outside of town. Dax huffed and panted, clutching her chest, as Kes merely grinned and bounced up and down. She then gagged, clutching her throat, before swallowing noisily. Ben shot her a glance, and she shook her head. The captain nodded, uncomprehendingly, before turning his gaze forward.

"Data? You all right there?" The captain inquired of the android, gripping the hood of the hovercar hard enough to leave imprints—Not very hard for Data to do, but still…

"I am fully functional. However, I had not anticipated the exact force of the explosion due to the conversion of the structure's building materials to plasma," the android confessed, seeming slightly shaken. Ben shook his head with a sigh.

"That's all right, Data. Not a problem."

"Kasumi _to Dax. _Kasumi_ to Dax. Hello, everyone okay there?"_ Inquired a light male voice from Dax's communicator. She flipped it open angrily.

"_Yes, _no thanks to you!" She snarled. Paris gasped on the other end.

"_Wha? What'd I do? I only recently cut through the static and—"_

"Tom, get _Kasumi_ running and be ready to launch the moment we're aboard. The Borg are busy with Saint Okuda at the moment, but I don't want to wait around for them to change their minds," Ben spoke briskly. The silence on the other end of the link lasted only a second, before:

"_Aye aye, sir. We'll be ready to lift off the moment you're in."_

"Good."

* * *

The _Kasumi_ was a modest transport-class vessel, one of several thousand _Negima-_class mid-range, warp freighters. Like all former-Federation world ships, she was unarmed, and had been given restrictions to its operational capabilities and capacities.

Like most former-Federation world ships, those restrictions had been somewhat smudged, out of necessity. The Raii Imperial bureaucrats who made up these figures had never actually been to the region these laws took effect in. Nor had they actually seen the ships these restrictions were to be placed upon. It was therefore a very good thing that Federation starship designs had been built with considerable flexibility in mind.

And, in the case of the _Negima-_class vessels, several additional features that made them favored for certain, less-than-legal operations. Among them: heavily shielded compartments that were part of the plasma distribution system, but were perfect for hiding things from prying eyes or sensors. Such as the big bag full to the brim with stolen money that Captain Ben Sisko tossed into one behind the bridge transporter pad. He turned, tugging slightly at his long black, threadbare coat, and walked to the cramped bridge. It actually only possessed three chairs—Two for pilot and co-pilot directly in front of the large, transparent aluminum screen, and one console behind that, for controlling the transporter and other back-up systems.

In the pilot's seat was the ever-grinning, ever cocky Tom Paris, easily sending the _Kasumi_ out of the atmosphere of Saint Okuda. His blue eyes always shined with mischief, framed by a smooth, lightly-tanned face under a mop of unruly golden hair. His fingers danced over the controls, before pulling the manual control yoke up a few degrees. He looked over his shoulder and smiled roguishly at his captain.

"Hey, sir! No sign of pursuit by the Frankenstein fleet. And no floating parks either." The captain nodded, settling into the co-pilot seat and looking over the engine readouts. Tom looked ahead, nudging the yoke a few degrees to port.

"Kira was worried sick," the pilot spoke into the sudden silence. Ben nodded, sighing deeply.

"I needed some time… To myself." The pilot raised his brows.

"Still after you about that baby, huh?" The captain shot Paris a semi-amused, semi-aggravated look.

"What have I told you about tapping into the intercom system?"

"I told you, captain, I don't need it to pick up on things," Tom replied smoothly. He grinned. "Besides, the way you've been walking on eggshells around each other is proof enough." Ben leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes tiredly. He let out a breath, closing his eyes.

"I keep telling her… Now is just not the right time. And besides… What kind of life would this be for a child?" The captain raised his hands out, as though he could hold _Kasumi_ and her situation in between their separation. He shook his head again.

"We will have children… I told her that. Someday."

"But not until you decide to," Tom added. Ben gave him a look, to which Tom smiled.

"Like I said… Eggshells. "

"Damnit… Knew I would make a terrible husband," Ben growled under his breath. Tom shrugged.

"Maybe… Huh. This is interesting." Ben looked over at Tom's console.

"What is it?"

"Seems that the Floating Treefort Fleet's found something interesting in our general area," the pilot murmured. He smirked. "A _big _something interesting. They've sent orders for ten heavy cruisers to deploy to this area," he pointed at a set of coordinates on the console screen. Ben frowned.

"No wonder they didn't respond to the Borg attack…" Tom shrugged.

"Well, since they only hit outer colonies, and seem more interested in stealing people's organs and household appliances than conquest, it hasn't raised much concern out of our beloved tree-hugging dictators." Tom's smirk became a frown to match the captain's.

"The hyper-subspace comms are shorting out… It's like they're being twisted around."

"Interference?" Asked Ben. Tom nodded.

"Looks like. But from what…" Both men shouted in shock as _Kasumi_ bucked, sending Tom's toy rocket ship clattering to the deck below. The pilot looked over his readings with mounting urgency.

"Subspace distortion, only five hundred kilometers ahead! Something's coming through it!" In the viewer ahead, a huge spout of green light appeared, twirling and spinning like a sink drain. It spat out four ships, before vanishing into dissolving clouds of displaced plasma. Ben looked over his readings, his mouth dropping open.

"Those ships… They have Federation identification beacons!"

"But those ships… They violate the tonnage limit by… A really big number!" Tom gawked, as the largest vessel, long, streamlined, and predatory, veered toward them.

"What's going on, dear?" Asked a frightened-looking Kira, dressed in her traditional red Bajoran garments. Ben turned to his wife.

"We're trying to find that out now… Tom, open up a—"

"_This is the Federation Starship _Archangel, _to unknown… Ben!"_ Benjamin Sisko turned to the holoscreen that had just popped up, and his jaw dropped to the console. Staring him in the face was a man he thought long dead, decked out in some strange black-and-gray uniform.

"_William!"

* * *

_

**Sorry if this seems too _Serenity-_ish. I only used _Firefly _as inspiration for this chapter. But don't worry—This is one plot no one will be able to predict. R&R!**


	10. Chapter 10

_**Star Trek: Babylon**_

_Andrew J. Talon

* * *

_

Captain Haru sipped his tea thoughtfully, as the enlisted men and a few officers of the _Ral'nai'HAO_ danced to the ship's band. Above the wooden deck, the stars streaked by on the other side of the dome as the Imperial Cruiser traveled at warp.

"Forgive me for saying so, sir, but these orders make no sense." The grey-haired man turned and cocked an eyebrow at Lieutenant Kim, who was standing next to the captain on the poop deck at the stern of the _Ral'nai'HAO._ As with ancient sailing vessels, the _Ral'nai'HAO_'s layout was arranged with higher decks forward and aft, with a long, flat deck in between. The poop deck here was usually reserved for officer's meetings in the habitation dome, away from the bustle of the enlisted men working around the deck, tending to the topside functions of the ship, such as navigation, command and control, communications, and intelligence. However, it was also the most spacious part of the ship, and thus the site of most of the recreation. The addition of numerous _tu'raii_ trees, that served as both zero-point energy generators, and high-efficiency life support systems, made the top deck very important indeed.

"What do you mean, Mr. Kim?"

"Ten first-rate cruisers, just to cover a wrecked starship? All of the survivors being relocated to a specialized hospital ship? We could have handled that situation nicely ourselves. And yet, High Command has us off back on our patrol the moment they get the HS signal on the situation." The young human man shook his head with a sigh. "It makes no sense."

"I've never known the Admiralty to possess a great deal of sense, myself," the captain soothed. He finished his cup of tea, before holding it out for the steward to fill back up again. Haru nodded his thanks to the prim-looking steward girl, who blushed prettily and bowed, before turning and walking among the other officers, offering them more tea as well.

"Still badgers the mind though, no doubt," Haru continued. "The _Zhukov_ is a mystery. Only a dozen guns to our sixty, yet still a match for us. A ship a century younger than _Ral'nai'HAO, _and yet considered aging. And where our vessel is made of enhanced fiber materials, organic compounds, and living wood… The _Zhukov_ is built of metals, composites, and ceramics." Haru shook his head, and leaned back in his chair.

"Quite a conundrum." Kim nodded.

"Yes sir. Quite."

The ship's klaxon went off, as the band stopped in the middle of a spirited piece and the dancing crewmembers began moving to their stations. Haru stood up and strode for the center deck, where the actual commanding of the ship took place. Kim followed, and brought his holoscreen as the captain rounded on the midshipman who had had the watch.

"Report, Mr. Yun." The midshipman was a girl, with brown, bushy hair, an athletic figure beneath her uniform, and wide violet eyes. But naval tradition was naval tradition, and she didn't hesitate to respond.

"Ship on course two-eight-zero, speed warp factor 9.972. Its warp signature is similar to the readings we took from the _Zhukov,_" Yun stated, drawing up the holoscreen that showed the waveform the warp fingerprint took. Haru scrutinized the readings, frowning heavily.

"The powerplant on this ship is very large… Far too large for the warp field being produced. As for the signature…"

"Captain! We are receiving an encoded message!" Yun indicated. Haru called up the holoscreen file in question, his teeth gritting. He showed it to Kim, who nodded and called for battle stations. Haru turned to the _Ral'nai'HAO's_ bosun, Rei Higami.

"Mr. Higami, plot an intercept course, best speed. Gunner! Prepare all weapons and unlock main armament! Have the Marines stand by for boarding! We're going in!"

* * *

"Weird." Lee looked up from the navigational console, to cast a glance at Ensign Mackenzie Jenkins, working the helm in Twee's absence.

"Ensign?" Jenkins turned to the captain, a frown on her face.

"There's a faint warp signature behind us, but it matches no know records. I only managed to pick it out, but it's there."

Lee turned to Haro, resolutely working the still-malfunctioning Operations console, who bit her lip.

"Sorry sir… Most of our sensors are still _w'nki_ from the passage through the anomaly."

"Tactical?" Wyn looked up from her console and shook her head.

"Aft tactical sensors can only give a basic readout of the vessel's speed and size. Warp 9.9… Roughly two-hundred meters tall, two hundred meters across."

"Big ship," Lee noted dryly. He turned to the science station.

"Mr. Lessing?"

"I'm reading bio-electrical energy coming from the vessel. Its construction looks primarily organic. Large concentrations of cellulose, hemicellulose, pectin, with equally large amounts of carbon-nanotubing, artificial diamond, and several other composites and materials I can't identify."

"A wooden starship?" Asked Haro in disbelief. A beep cut off Lee's response, as she looked down at her console. "It's entering visual range."

"On-" The deck rocked, and threw the captain to the deck, while the seated crewmembers held onto their stations. Lee got up, grumbling a moment, before snapping to Wyn: "Red alert, shields up! Haro, hail them."

The second barrage from the alien starship still knocked the _Sojourner_ about, but less violently. Lee was able to maintain his balance, as Haro shook her head.

"No response! They're just shooting!"

"Allright. Lock onto their warp engine..." Lee blinked at the image of the attacking starship on the viewscreen, which someone had put up. A long, lean hull, cut and carved as though from a single, massive log, with a blue-tinged dome nestled within it. And arranged in a wing-like configuration around the vessel were several long, muscular masts. Locked into the masts were blue, brightly-glowing orbs and cylinders, with freely-moving plasma clearly visible in each, forming a complex plumbing system that seemed to be their warp drive. But alongside these plasma conduits were large, white sails, which sparkled like diamond cloth and waved like feathers on a bird's wing. Mounted on struts, held up and pulled taut with—he wasn't seeing things—some kind of rope, the sails shimmered constantly.

"Absorption sails!" Haro yelped. "They fill the same purpose as our deflector dish—They take the hits and stresses of warpdrive for the ship!" The next broadside from the bizarre starship made the ship shake again, as Lee stumbled over to the tactical console. Wyn looked up and indicated a point on a diagram of the pursuing vessel.

"I believe a full-powered burst of our phasers would be enough to disrupt their warp drive, here. Their sails are apparently plugged directly into their power distribution system, taking the kinetic energy of matter-impacts and adding it to their stores."

"Ingenious," Lee nodded. "We overload one of their key sails, and the whole system collapses?"

"It does not look that fragile, captain, but it should allow us to escape," Wyn responded, calmly as ever even when another barrage of weapons fire hit them. "Shields are at sixty percent." The captain nodded.

"Lock on."

"Locked."

"Fire!" As Wyn usually did, she used the four saucer-section phaser arrays to attack the alien starship. They were the longest, and therefore could throw the most power out in a single blast. It may have been an Angosian trait, but for Wyn, it was second-nature to end a fight as quickly as possible.

The beams struck the alien ship in one of its smaller sails, nearest its connection to the port dorsal mast. The sudden burst of raw energy into the sail system was enough to overload several conduits, which blew out in discharges of fiery plasma along the mast. The sail itself was broken loose, and tumbled away into the ship's wake. _Sojourner_ had not crippled the vessel, but she was gaining ground on it.

Until the alien ship's next barrage struck.

* * *

"Heavy damage to warp organs five through eleven!" Midshipman Yun reported loudly, over the battle stations klaxons. Through the swarm of red-tinged holoscreens, Captain Haru growled.

"We need to knock them out of warp! Gunner!"

"Sir!"

"Target one of their nacelles, full charge! We're done being gentle."

Lieutenant Kim looked up from his own readings, and barked orders out to the gunnery crews on the lower decks. Four green screens popping in front of his face later, he nodded to his captain.

"All forward batteries report ready, sir!"

"Mark your target! Ship's starboard engine nacelle!"

"Marked, sir!" The gunner shouted. Haru scowled.

"Turn off that damn klaxon! AND FIRE!"

Thirty concentrated blasts of anti-graviton accelerated antimatter shells struck _Sojourner's_ right nacelle as one, shattering the _Intrepid-_class cruiser's shields and ripping through the streamlined pod like a fist through wrapping paper. The _Ral'nai'HAO_'s main guns, heavy-energy, superluminal particle cannons, blasted through and dealt the fatal blow. Warp coils and plasma exploded outwards, rendering the nacelle a tattered, burning mold of scrap, as the ship dropped violently out of warp. Burning plasma covered the after section of her hull, and with the exhaust flowing out of the ruptured conduits, the vessel looked all the world like a demon vessel carrying the damned.

* * *

"Well… Looks like we made them mad," observed Lee mildly, once again lying across the deck. He spat out a tooth knock loose from the impact, and grimaced at the acrid taste of blood flooding his mouth. He spat it out, and got to his feet… Then wished he hadn't, as he coughed into the smoke. In a rush, sounds bombarded his ears: The scream of the alert klaxons, the sparking of a shattered console, the groans of Lessing, shakily staring at the shards of metal lodged in his arm. The captain was by him in an instant, taking the medkit he'd had installed under his chair. He had emergency field medic training, and there were never enough med kits when he'd served aboard the _Sojourner_ before making captain.

"Lie still. Damage report!" Lee demanded. Wyn, a bloody gash above her left eye, gave her report as calmly as ever, while emergency medics and DC personnel scrambled around the stifling bridge.

"Starboard nacelle… Has been destroyed. Warp drive is down. Aft shield generator is offline. Hull breaches on decks twelve and eleven, sections ten, eleven, and fourteen. Emergency force fields are not responding, so I have sealed off the areas with bulkheads."

"_Gilmore to bridge! Captain, we're going to have to shut down the warp core. The feedback from the nacelle explosion has caused the plasma injection system to jam!" _A few moments later, the bridge emergency lights switched on as the red-alert lights shut down. Most of the consoles went dark as well, save tactical, flight control, and ops. Lee cursed under his breath.

"Casualties?"

"Six crewmembers were killed in the hull breaches," Wyn dutifully reported. "Sickbay reports twenty cases of decompression injuries, eight plasma burn victims, and eleven injuries of other forms." Lee winced, before surveying the rest of the bridge quickly.

Two medics were taking Lessing to the turbolift, run by the emergency generators. Haro was looking shaken, but thankfully uninjured. Jenkins had a medic running a dermal regenerator over her forehead, and looked slightly dazed. Lee walked up to the medic tending Jenkins, took his medkit, and told him to get down to sickbay and help with the real injuries.

"Real?" Jenkins mumbled in an affronted tone, as the captain finished healing her head injury, before taking a medical tricorder and running it over her. The captain sighed.

"You have a concussion. The sickbay's full right now, but I know how to treat it. Lay down on the deck," he instructed the blonde pilot. Jenkins laughed tipsily, slowly (with Lee's help) getting down to the floor.

"Heard that one before," she muttered, which Lee resolutely ignored.

"I take it, since we're not dead, that the alien ship has moved on?"

"Looks like that impact actually knocked the sensors back into operation though it knocked out primary life support," Haro noted ironically. Lee sighed.

"Maybe Gilmore has something to that cursed thing… What can you tell me?"

"That ship that maimed us has a transponder that identifies herself as the HMS _Ral'nai'HAO, _a Raii Imperial Heavy Cruiser. And, it looks like she's escorting the _Delta Flyer._" Haro shook her head morbidly.

"Great day, huh sir?"

"Yeah, a real blast…" Lee growled. He tapped a few buttons on the navigational console, before nodding. "I'm setting a course for an M-class planet in this system. With our one good engine, we should be able to make it in only a few hours. Once there, we can start making repairs. Gilmore?"

"_Kind of busy right now, sir," _the engineer reported breathlessly over the comm. Lee nodded.

"Aren't we all? Listen, how do we land _Sojourner_ in her condition?" There was a pause.

"… _How hard did you hit your head, captain?"_

"Gilmore, life support's been shot, we're short a warp engine, and about a fourth of the crew is either dead or injured. At the moment, our options are down to staying in space and freezing to death, staying in space and dying from lack of air, abandoning ship (which I'm not about to do unless it's absolutely necessary), or landing and making repairs. So, Marla, tell me: How do we land?" There was the sound of furious muttering in the background, before Marla came back on the comm.

"_We can restart the warp core, long enough to activate and deploy the armor. We should then be able to land without much trouble. The problem is, captain, we don't have any space warp coils lying around."_

"Can we still use the slipstream?"

"_Possibly, but I wouldn't recommend it with all the hull damage we've taken. We'll need to repair the breaches and shields before we attempt it."_ Lee sighed.

"It'll have to do." Lee looked down and cursed that he'd begun multi-tasking without even thinking again. While it was good he'd repaired the concussion Jenkins had suffered, it was a little annoying how easily he could do those kinds of things without much thought. As though he were programmed to it.

_Programmed… Not now._

"Jenkins, we're going to have to cut the impulse engines and use them to maintain emergency life support until we get to that M-class planet," the captain began. Jenkins blinked woozily, but nodded in understanding.

"You're going to take any shuttle pilots you have, and start towing us towards that planet, allright? While doing so, I want you guys to start scanning for warp coil materials. Once we've landed, safely, we're going to need you to head out and try to gather as much as you can."

"And, if we can't find any?" Jenkins asked. Lee sighed.

"Then tell the flight department to get ready to start pulling apart every shuttle we have. I'd rather try to find some raw materials first before cannibalizing our support wing, but have the crews ready just in case."

* * *

"_The spare sail is being replaced as we speak, captain_," the sailing master of the _Ral'nai'HAO_ reported over the comm channel. "_Our current best speed is only Warp 7, but it is enough to keep up with the_ Flyer." Captain Haru nodded, pleased.

"Excellent, Mr. Niao. Keep me informed." The holoscreen winked out of existence, as the captain turned to Lieutenant Kim. "Final count, Mr. Kim?"

"Twenty-six crewmen were wounded in the action, sir. The surgeon reports that they will all make full recoveries," Kim reported. "Other than what has already been secured, no further damage was sustained."

"And yet, their energy readings indicated that they were more than a match for us," Haru mused. "What was their armament?"

"Sensors indicated that they had a magazine of fifty warp-capable antimatter projectiles, each with a yield in excess of one-hundred fifty megatons," Kim began. "And thirteen high-output, variable modulation nadion reaction emitters, each with an estimated yield of 12 terrawatts." Haru concealed his shock at such a heavy weapons load, on such a small ship, only through years of practice.

"Damn… Perhaps they wished to board us?" Kim shook his head.

"If they had, they wouldn't have kept running at full speed." Haru frowned, his steel gray eyes narrowed in thought. He then turned to his loyal lieutenant.

"Mr. Kim… Inform Lady Hansen, aboard her _Flyer,_ that we have sent word ahead to other Imperial starships to escort her into home space. We have a ship to hunt down." The first officer nodded.

"Aye sir."

* * *

_Sojourner_ was one of the first batch of _Intrepid-_class starships to be launched, third only after _Intrepid_ herself, and the now-famous _Voyager._ With her advanced technology, speed, agility, and relatively heavy armament, she had become the flagship of Admiral Nechayev in her operations with the Cardassian Union. She had been Adam Lee's second posting, and thereafter, his only posting. His only explanations for passing on transfers to such prize postings as the _Enterprise_ or _Deep Space Nine,_ was that "this is where I should be."

He'd intended to become her captain when he turned forty—He'd started out as her operations manager—but the Dominion War saw him becoming the only experienced officer _Sojourner _had left after the disastrous Tyra battle with the Seventh Fleet. With personnel shortages being what they were, he was given a captain's commission at the age of twenty-six, skipping three whole ranks, for the simple reason that no one else was available.

In the eyes of the admirals who gave him the extreme jump to command, he saw pity, despair, and regret at shoving this burden on a young lieutenant, whom they were sure would last no more than a week with the way things were going._ Sojourner_ was a ship full of children, from all corners of the Federation, fresh out of training. Her officers were just out of the academy. And her captain had barely finished command school. There were a hundred ships like her—And a hundred ships like her already destroyed.

Lee had taken the dedication plaque off the bridge, and nailed it, in full view of the crew before their first mission, in the mess hall. Afterwards, he had pointed to the motto emblazoned on the bottom, and led the crew in reciting it.

"_'I have just taken on a great responsibility. I will do my utmost to meet it,_'" they had said, before Lee had smiled and pointed at the name of the man who said it. Haro, only a year out of the academy, and acting first-officer, never forgot what her captain followed up with.

"The man who said this was Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, a naval commander in Earth's Second World War. As he did so many centuries ago, we face an enemy that overpowers us at every turn. A fanatical enemy, whose only desire is to kill for their gods, who lie to and manipulate their people, who care nothing for the rights of other beings. War is never a pretty thing. All our worlds, all the peoples of the Federation joined together to try and end war, to live in peace and harmony with each other, as a family. And right now, that family is being threatened, with murder, slavery, and devastation. Far too long, have we let petty differences, and prejudices, and stereotypes divide and weaken us. The Rigellians say that humans are too judgmental, the humans say the Rigellians are too passionate. The Bolians and the Betazoids feud over ancient land rights, the Vulcans and Andorians still squabble over a war long done. As in any family, there are disagreements, grudges, arguments. And yet… When push comes to shove, our disorganized family has stood up and survived cataclysm after cataclysm, defeated tyrant after murderous tyrant. It is no small task, defending the freedom of our little Federation. It is, indeed, a great responsibility. But one we will meet. Let go of your fears, your doubts, and your preconceived notions. Don't look around and see aliens, any of you! See your brothers, sisters, and other family members. See your home. That is what we are fighting for, everyone. This is our responsibility, to make sure that there are still people willing to go boldly where no one has gone before, or people just willing to live in peace and security." He'd tapped his hammer idly against his palm, silent, looking down at the crowd before him.

"We have just taken on a great responsibility. And we will do our utmost to meet it."

And they had. They'd fought in every major battle of the Dominion War afterwards, surviving bloodied and bruised, but triumphant. They'd undertaken and succeeded in a dozen dangerous covert operations. They had fought tooth and nail, and were there at the end, flanking the _Defiant_ in their final push to Cardassia.

And Mitena Haro never doubted, not once, that they would continue to fulfill that vow made years ago.

Even when it felt like _Sojourner_ was about to shake apart at the seams under her hands.

"Damnit! Shuttlecraft _Xhosa,_ decrease your speed!" Lee growled over the comm. link, furiously tapping at the operations controls. The captain had not renewed his pilot's qualification, so he had taken over the ops station, in order to better manage the ship as they descended into the atmosphere of the M-class planet. Haro herself, as she was an excellent pilot, took ops and was busy keeping the _Sojourner_ stable in an already rocky landing.

"Thrusters are at half strength, captain! Can you get me any more?" She shouted over the rumbling and ominous screeching. The captain didn't respond, but a few moments later the RCS thrusters went up to 75.

"Thank you!" She grinned, feeling exhaustion nip away at her sanity. Oh well, if you're going to crash and explode into a gigantic crater, why not do it smiling?

"Armor is holding captain, though I should point out that should we make planetfall too harshly, the resulting shock will crush the ship within the armor," Wyn reported flatly. Lee nodded.

"Thank you, Miss Wyn," he said impatiently, slamming a hand against the control panel. "C'mon, little one, just a bit further…"

Haro informed the shuttles trying to guide the _Sojourner_ into a landing with their tractor beams that she was going to simply take remote control of them all, in order to make things easier. Quickly integrating the shuttle's controls into the _Sojourner's_ RCS thruster network, she maneuvered the little ships about the starship in a layout similar to the RCS thrusters themselves. This would give her a little more control in where they ended up.

Their entry into the atmosphere of the planet was purposely slow, and shallow, to the point that it took ten minutes to actually get close to the ground. But, the less energy _Sojourner_ pumped out, the better—No need to attract more attention than needed.

Finally, with a shuddering groan, _Sojourner_ landed on her four landing struts—Completely un-crushed. Haro noted in slight amusement that the armor had deployed exactly as it would have if their starboard nacelle was still intact.

"Hard on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside," she murmured, shaking her head. Maybe she was spending too much time around Wyn, if she was becoming this cynical.

"Good work, people," Lee announced, affectionately patting the ops console with a shy smile he only gave his ship. Or the doctor, but she wasn't here. He stretched, before yawning loudly.

"Now then… Let's get to work, shall we? Jenkins! Find us some warp coils!"

* * *

_To be continued…_


End file.
